There's a Fine Line (an SA3 fic)
by KyoSo
Summary: At what point is the world just not worth saving anymore? Can you actually let go and watch it all burn, or do you keep fighting at the risk of losing everyone you love? GUN, a military organization totally corrupt and out of control, is hunting Sonic under false pretenses and Tails is the only one with a way out. A deconstruction and continuation of the Sonic Adventure series.
1. On the Run

**Chapter I**

 **On the Run**

Today was nothing special. The weather wasn't particularly wonderful, but it was the kind of day in which one could make outdoor plans without fear of them falling victim to inconsiderate precipitation. In fact, barring possible cloud cover, it was the perfect circumstances for the meteor shower predicted to peak at eleven thirty tonight.

Atop a lush hill overlooking a lake - which was at least passably picturesque if you ignored the floating garbage - was a small split-level dwelling. The house was in some state of disrepair, although this was due more to inattention from the occupant than anything. As far as he was concerned, unless the actual structural integrity of the building was compromised there was little cause for worry.

Miles "Tails" Prower stepped out the front door, shoulder bag strapped to his side. He scanned the surroundings expectantly but found nobody waiting for him. He sighed loudly and slammed the front door in annoyance, shattering his front windows.

"Typical," he scoffed and began rummaging through his bag. He produced a can of cola, cracked it open, downed it in one gulp, belched loudly, threw the can into the lake, and began on his way. Amy Rose and Cream the Rabbit had agreed to meet him at nine o'clock sharp, and from there they were to travel to an idyllic spot atop a nearby plateau. It was an arduous hike, but it was the best possible viewing spot for the meteor shower, and Tails had no intention of missing another one due to light pollution.

About seventy yards down the dirt path from his house, he produced his cell phone from the bag and dialed Amy's number.

"Where are you?" Tails said, gruffly.

"On the plateau," Amy answered. "Where are you?"

"Waiting for you! We said nine o'clock at my place!"

"No, we said we'd be at the plateau at nine o'clock. We came to your place at seven and you weren't there."

This was met with silence. "No, you didn't," Tails straw-grasped.

Amy ignored him. "Can you make it by eleven?"

"Of course I can," he lied. He clacked the cell phone closed. "And now," he said to himself, "I get to feel like an idiot for the rest of the day."

* * *

It had been a quiet few months. Despite the recent events regarding the space colony ARK, the remainder of the year had been downright pleasant for the gang. Winter had come and gone without incident, and the lush spring air gave an inviting sense of contentment. Life was slow and uneventful with a few bursts of excitement here and there, and that was precisely the way it should be. There was surely something horrible just waiting to pop up just over the horizon, but the extended break was more than welcome and, what's more, decidedly earned.

However, with half the moon missing, there was a devastating effect on the tides which resulted in a not particularly small number of coastal cities being wiped off the map. Eggman was only able to escape trial for this by trading a large amount of his highly advanced weapons technology to the Guardian Units of Nations. G.U.N. oversaw the military operations of quite a few countries around the world, providing equipment and soldiers and were starting to be seen by many as a modern empire. Eggman deeply despised them, though they let him quietly operate unimpeded in payment for the tech so it seemed more than worth it. Had the public known about this, there certainly would have been a massive outcry, but if anyone knew how to keep behind closed doors, it was G.U.N. commander Abraham Tower. He had leaked the story that Eggman had been taken out in a mission by G.U.N. and all his assets and equipment seized, allowing the scientist to quietly live on his own, keeping himself useful by inventing various gadgets.

* * *

Tails huffed his way up a steep incline, flashlight in hand. It had gotten quite dark in the past hour, and he wasn't prepared to trip and break anything vital to his continued locomotion. The thousands of cicadas in the surrounding forest hummed loudly, repeatedly reaching a crescendo before quieting back down again. He continued along, panting and wiping the sweat from his forehead. Here he was, again, late to the party. As always.

"Hey!" he shouted.

"Tails?" came the response.

Tails ran as fast as he could, covering the remaining distance. The trees dwindled to shrubs as he entered a large clearing where Amy and Cream had set up camp. A decent-sized bonfire was crackling loudly as Cheese the Chao swooped in a figure-eight pattern above it, singing gibberish.

"I'm here now," said Tails, pointlessly.

"Did you bring the camera?" asked Cream, lounging across a sleeping bag next to the fire.  
Tails answered by unzipping the bag and producing a rather fancy DSLR, complete with telephoto lens. "Freakin' sweet, isn't she?" he beamed. He set the camera atop a tripod, lens fixed on the sky. "I don't suppose Sonic is anywhere to be found?"

"Of course not!" Amy blurted out. "He still has to answer for all the property damage he caused escaping from the feds. "

"It's not like they could overlook it in light of him saving the world or anything," Tails grumbled. "There's always gotta be a fall guy, and Sonic is straight-up haphazard with nearly everything he does."

"Some might call it free-spirited," Amy suggested.

"I call it clumsy and dangerous," said Tails, shrugging, "but whatever. He destroyed a lot of cars charging through the city streets like a maniac. Maybe it's good that he's being held accountable." Tails shifted around uncomfortably. "You haven't seen him, have you?"

"Not even for a second," Amy answered, as Cream nodded an affirmative. "Why?"

"No reason," Tails lied. "I just want to see my buddy, y'know?"

A cool breeze lightly rustled the tree branches as the sun let out its last flare and disappeared across the horizon. No longer could one frantically make the case that the thin sliver of light wavering through the forest still arguably constituted daytime; that ship had sailed. The cold blanket of night fully covered the land, and now it was time for the meteor shower.

The rest of the evening was an overall pleasant experience. Save for one or two spectacular fireballs, the shower was nothing special. Adequate. Not disappointing. Simply adequate.

"Well that was a load of bull," Tails complained at an inappropriate volume, doing an incredibly poor job of concealing his deep-seated stress and frustration over Sonic's situation.

"Quiet, Tails. It was pretty," Amy shushed him.

"I've seen better."

"Chao chao chao," input Cheese, unhelpfully.

"I'm gonna head back to my place," said Tails, stowing his camera back into the messenger bag. "Sorry if I sounded flippant about the meteor shower," he said, trying to excuse his uncharacteristically sharp attitude without having to justify it. "I still really enjoyed hanging out with you guys."

"It's fine," Cream reassured. "You're a perfectionist. We understand."

Tails blushed. "Yeah," he admitted.

And he was off.

* * *

South Island offered its fair share of disreputable districts, and under normal circumstances Sonic the Hedgehog would want nothing to do with them. They were dilapidated, full of quite amazingly shifty people and just generally depressing. However, admittedly, if one wanted to not be found, they served as some of the best hiding spots available. Going incognito wasn't a problem if nobody was willing to take the dive and search for you.

True, he'd caused a fair amount of unnecessary collateral damage, but it was entirely unintentional, and he felt that his actions should outweigh a few totaled minivans. But there was no such luck. Somebody had to be held responsible, and Sonic had to admit that he had undeniably caused several million dollars in property damage. But then he was not exactly an income-earning individual either. The intricacies of the economy did not concern him, as he was entirely focused on living his life day to day in the most entertaining and engaging way possible. It's not that he didn't want to pay for the damages, it's that he simply did not have any money. Period.

Not for want of trying, but after thoroughly establishing that he was unable to hang on to money without immediately spending it on the first possible opportunity, Sonic was forced to concede to the fact that his financial skills, for lack of a better word, sucked. But, he decided, that didn't matter; being a well-respected hero, he could procure most anything he wanted for free from his adoring fans. He briefly pondered the morality of this system, but quickly dismissed the thought in favor of charging around the city at an obscene speed for the second time today.

Well, considering the many traffic accidents he'd caused in the past, maybe a little slower this time. That'd probably be for the best.

Atop the Shrine of the Master Emerald, Knuckles the Echidna was playing yet another game of checkers against himself. Even though this was the sixth or seventh time he'd won, he'd been losing just as often. Knuckles was bored. So bored that he almost found himself missing his frantic searches for the shards of the Master Emerald; at least it gave him something engaging to do, something he could focus all his time and energy to that actually had a tangible reward.

"I'm so bored," he said for the fifth time in two minutes.

Just then, as if to answer his predicament, Sonic came zooming up the stairs of the shrine. Knuckles objected to his use of the Emerald as a buffer, but Sonic defended himself, explaining that the slick stones made it impossible to stop in time.

"If you shatter this thing again, I'm going to be royally pissed off," Knuckles lied.

"Oh, big deal," Sonic dismissed him. "The chaos emeralds are scattered across space. Why do you even keep this thing around any more?"

Sonic wasn't being entirely unreasonable. Shadow had been carrying the seven emeralds as he fell from orbit, and everyone determined just a bit late that dying while utilizing the power of all seven chaos emeralds at full capacity sends them catapulting off in all directions. Unfortunately, being in high orbit, this meant the Master Emerald was now out of a job, and in effect Knuckles was too. The conduit that bound and controlled the most powerful gems in the world had lost its true intended function.

"Maybe you could power a car with it," said Sonic.

Knuckles ignored him. "The emeralds may be missing, but they're still out there somewhere. It may be possible to use the Master Emerald to track them down."

"Brilliant plan," Sonic scoffed. "Let's all pile into the family camper and drive to space, why don't we? I'll pack."

"Shut up, Sonic," Knuckles pointed out. "It's just a thought." He paused. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been slumming. I'm pretty sure the fuzz is after my head so I decided to hide in the red light district until the heat's off, but that place smells like a sulfur mine filled with sewage runoff. So I decided to visit you."

"Do you think they're just gonna forget if you run around a few more weeks?"

Sonic sighed. "Well, what do you think I should do? Pay for the damages?"

Knuckles barely paused. "Yes."

"I'm broke. People just kinda give me stuff."

"Or I dunno, go to a dealer and convince them to give you enough free cars to replace the ones you wrecked."

"Dude, do you have any idea how many that is?"

"I don't know what to tell you." There was a momentary beat. "Wait, hold on, Tails was looking for you."

Sonic paused. "Why?"

"No idea," said Knuckles.

"Huh," said Sonic simply, and a moment later he was gone. Knuckles shrugged and went back to winning his seventh or eighth chess game.

* * *

Several miles away, and an additional tenth of a mile underground, Dr. Eggman found himself unusually restless. His current loyal servant (for he went through them like tissues), Abacus, named after the purely stylistic mechanized beaded-tubes that adorned his metallic frame, had been malfunctioning to the point of uselessness. Eggman wanted the day off, but it looked like he might have to invest his time and energy into whipping up another DIY supervisor to oversee things before he could take a day to himself.

It wasn't that he particularly wanted to return to his pattern of failed attempts at seizing power, but, in much the same dilemma Knuckles was facing, he certainly missed having a singular purpose to devote himself to. And true, he was still designing deadly machinery, but it was purely for the sake of recreational mechanical work. It's not like he'd find another use for these things, right?

It seemed a waste of his genius to sit around doing not much of anything. After all, his end goal had always been to build a utopia. Any action in pursuit of such a noble goal was justified, he reasoned, but the more overt violent approach simply didn't work. He was outgunned and outclassed by both Sonic and his friends and G.U.N., who, thanks to their similarly warped devotion to keeping the free world free, probably hated him even more. Definitely a threat to Eggman's dream of running his own utopia. As such when he was approached by the Minutemen, a terrorist group devoted to destroying (or, more realistically, merely impeding) G.U.N. he was more than happy to quietly fund and supply them. After all, it only added to the more than decent money he was already making off selling the same technology to G.U.N..

Eggman leaned back in his chair. There was just one other thing bothering him: "What am I going to do with that Egg Carrier III?" he wondered aloud. He'd built it in the lull between the Chaos incident and that unfortunate business with the space colony ARK, and it seemed a shame to let such a marvel of engineering lay dormant in an underground hangar gathering dust. But then he certainly couldn't take it out for a spin. His newfound status as a non-criminal was precarious at best, and taking such a massive craft out on a joy ride would raise all of the red flags possible with any one of the multiple agencies monitoring his activities for potential threats. The sky up to and including orbital space was monitored by some agency or another, and while Eggman solely possessed cloaking technology capable of subverting detection, nothing less than chaos emeralds could power it on anything above a small scale.

* * *

Tails sat in his backyard, mentally dissecting the surrounding landscape into national borders and then putting them to bloody war after a series of diplomatic faux pas caused by incompetent translators. He zeroed in on one country, his favorite; while it only occupied a single hill, that high ground gave it a massive strategic advantage. He'd dubbed it Hillsylvania, having used up all his clever names on the larger nations. Tails took a deep breath, grinned, and promptly began plotting the takeover of the neighboring Meadowslovakia, occupying their forces with a land invasion before they could launch an offensive against Hillsylvania.

Suddenly Sonic appeared out of nowhere, two feet in front of him. "Yo," he said.

"AAAAHH!" Tails answered.

"Knuckles said you were looking for me."

"I think my aorta just exploded," Tails wheezed, trying to subdue a panic attack from the lightning-fast invasion of his personal space. "But yes, I have been. Look, I know how to clear your name and give you your life back. You're not gonna like it, though."

"Try me."

"G.U.N. is offering to pull strings and get all charges against you dropped if, if you offer your services to them as a..." Tails paused, trying to come up with the most enticing way to word this. "...secret agent." You could've done better than that, he thought to himself.

Sonic didn't hesitate even a moment. "No."

"Uh, hello, all charges dropped? Was that not clear to you?"

"After what they did to me? After what they did aboard the ARK? At least Eggman admitted he was doing highly immoral things to achieve his end goal. These guys play army in the name of freedom, but behind closed doors all bets are off. The ends justify the means, and the means are moral garbage."

"That...was a highly articulate tirade for you," said Tails, genuinely impressed despite the slightly condescending tone. "Look, nobody's forcing you to do anything. We just want our friend back." He put his hand on Sonic's shoulder, where there was suddenly a sharp prick.

"Hey! Did you just pinch me?!" Sonic shouted.

"What? No. Why would I even...?"

"Either you pinched me or jammed a thumbtack into my shoulder.'

"I just got through telling you how much we care about you. Why would I do that? You can trust me."

Sonic blindly groped for any foreign object on his shoulder but came up empty. "Static?" he suggested.

"For lack of a better explanation," Tails agreed, "let's go with that. But seriously, I know you don't want to do this, but you're of far more use to the world when you're not fleeing the authorities. Please just consider it, OK?"

Sonic nodded his head ambiguously in several different directions and went on his way.


	2. Descent

**Chapter II**

 **Descent**

Hacha'kyum was an echidna, but that was no longer the first thing you would notice about him. His dead body was laying on the floor of a crystalline cavern covered in a thin transparent film of silver metal. Kukulcan, his faithful companion, had long since fled toward the surface to give the others what would end up being a terribly inaccurate account of what had transpired. History would never know it, but Hacha'kyum was the first ever victim of the Fountain.

The first of hundreds.

Exposure to liquid chaos had wildly variable effects on the body chemistry of organisms, something that was discovered by the Ah Canul tribe through both accidental and deliberate exposure to the substance. Chao, of which there was an extremely dense population in the surrounding region, were commonly the unwitting test subjects in what was, for a culture predating the scientific method by millennia, an abnormally well performed and documented series of trials. The Ah Canul believed the liquid to be magic, something that could be potentially exploited as a weapon against their enemies. However, they wanted to understand exactly what it did before they employed it, and that was rather difficult given its wildly unpredictable effects.

Many exposed to liquid chaos died within minutes, even seconds. What concerned the Ah Canul about using it in battle was when it didn't kill test subjects, instead radically altering their body chemistry into something unprecedented in nature but biologically stable. The experiments finally ended when a chao was mutated into a being the echidnas later dubbed Qaholom, an entity who seemed impervious to any and all attack. The thing was fully hellbent on protecting the local chao population from further abuse, which given its origins was more than understandable. Chief Kan Boar, having decided liquid chaos was far too dangerous to be toyed with, ordered the caves leading to the Fountain sealed.

Or at least that's what the populace was lead to believe.

The experiments were continued on animals and prisoners, and the process of mining the crystal in the Chamber of the Fountain began. Considered a holy place by the Ah Canul, mining would be seen as desecration, a major offense to the gods. Kan Boar was unconcerned with such matters, feeling that the gods would rather deal with a little desecration than the tribe being wiped out were he not to weaponize liquid chaos against Chief Pachacamac and his wretched tribe on the other side of the mountain. His philosophy was that anything is justified so long as it was done for the greater good, and right now he felt the greater good was to destroy the surrounding clans and secure the future of the Ah Canul. His ultimate mission in life was to ensure his people ruled until the end of time.

Six months later, he was dead.

And so was everyone else.

* * *

A lone figure sat in the middle of a large, empty expanse. The room was very poorly lit, though the flickering light in the center cast a dim if inconsistent glow across the metallic walls. The figure was, with the help of a book light, reading a trashy novel as she waited for her orders to come in. She'd been sitting like this for hours and wanted more than anything to take a walk and stretch her legs, but that was out of the question; this mission was in direct response to a sudden and complete change in their targets' activities, and there was no way in hell she was going to miss it over minor discomfort.

There came a glow from the floor, which then emitted a hologram. It wasn't the stereotypical flickering messy-signal type, either; it was completely clean and opaque, utterly life-like except for its tiny size. The projection was not of someone, but of an object, helpfully identified by several lines of text which included its disproportionately minuscule weight.

"We need you to fly out and collect it. Mission profile incoming." The hologram flicked into seven paragraphs of text, preceded by the words "TOP PRIORITY".

The lone figure smiled, and said, "It will be done." She reached into her pocket and retrieved a data stick, plugged it into the holo-display and downloaded the information. Well, this was unexpected. She was all gung-ho to go on a dangerous mission and this was just stealing an inanimate object. Oh well. Enjoyable or not, this was the most important thing in the world right now. Anything for the cause.

Anything.

* * *

In approximately two minutes, things would go swiftly downhill.

Sonic had been taking another stroll, or at least his definition of a stroll, through the red light district when he noticed quite a large quantity of windowless vans parked throughout the area. He briefly toyed with the idea that a convention specifically aimed at disreputable individuals might be in town, but moments later he felt a second sharp sting to the shoulder. He jolted around, this time easily finding the responsible object. It was a dart. He quickly scanned the street for the origin of said dart, only to discover six of the incredibly suspicious-looking vans rapidly approaching him.

Oh no. Sonic just then realized what Tails had done to him. He turned to run, but simply fell over. "Run lateeeer," he slurred. "Time for sleep..." And out he went like a light.

Seemingly seconds later, Sonic awoke to find himself cuffed more times than he had limbs, secured to a metallic chair. "Dammit, Tails," he muttered, alerting the attending staff that he had woken up. The room was totally featureless and dark, save for the single dangling lightbulb and the obligatory two-way mirror. Sonic figured this was all for show; intimidate the prisoners by mimicking the exaggerated interrogation rooms they'd seen in the movies. He took a moment to consider the point of pretending a two-way mirror was anything but. Since nobody would fall for that trick, he figured it must be purely for psychological effect; even if you know people are watching you from the other side, not being able to see them makes you inherently more comfortable and therefore cooperative.

Enter a large, grey-haired man. He was easily in his sixties, and judging from the multitude of medals adorning his similarly grey uniform he was in the higher echelons of G.U.N. His dichromatic eyes stood out in particular, and probably served as an easy conversation piece.

"Look," Sonic began, "I'll find a way to pay for the damages-"

"We don't give a shit about those cars you totaled. We've been gunning for your services for years-"

Sonic chuckled. "Hah! 'Gunning'! I get it!"

"Shut your mouth!" shouted the man, grabbing Sonic by his shoulders. "We finally have the opportunity to make use of your particular skill set. Just stay quiet and do what you're told and we won't have to drag your friends into this."

Sonic's chipper defiance melted and drowned. "You can't do that," he growled.

"We do whatever it takes," responded the man, simply. Sonic couldn't argue with that logic, at least not out loud. "We'll uncuff you as soon as we're certain you're ready to cooperate. Which in all likelihood will be in approximately five seconds." He turned to the two-way. "Kill the mirror!" he ordered.

And there, sitting on the other side, was Tails, shackled to hell just like Sonic, a clear look of regret on his saddened face. Sonic stared in bemusement, and seeing him in such a horrible position he couldn't help but forgive Tails for planting the tracker on him. Then he swore, very loudly, for a solid fifteen seconds.

Calming down, he lowered his head, conceding defeat. "Tails, I'm so sorry," he said, knowing full and well Tails probably couldn't hear him. He turned to the grey-haired man and glared. "You win. You freaking win. Just tell me what I need to do."

"That's the spirit!" said the man, condescendingly. "You'll be taking all your orders through me. My name is Abraham Tower. You might have heard of me." Sonic shook his head in an affirmative. "Well, let's see what you're made of, shall we?"

There was a high-pitched buzz as every shackle simultaneously flung itself open and clattered into a pile on the floor. Sonic stood up, stretched, turned to Tower, and charged at him. This attempted attack was cut short by a sudden electrical shock that sent him to the floor, seizing uncontrollably. As the shock ended and Sonic lay dazed on the floor, Tower explained what Sonic had already deduced. "Shock collar. Act out of line and you'll get enough volts to jumpstart a car. Tamper with it and it blows your head off."

"Fantastic," Sonic muttered under his breath. "Well," he said aloud, sighing. "Let's get this over with."

After being outfitted with an earpiece, Sonic found himself, not for the first time that year, an unwilling passenger aboard a G.U.N. helicopter. At least I'm not cuffed this time, he thought to himself, trying to make the best of what was arguably one of the worst situations he'd ever been in.

Now he was nothing more than a pawn. His integrity, his assuredness that he was always doing the right thing, all that went out the window the moment Tails put that tracker on him. Sonic grimaced at the thought. As angry as he was about what Tails had done, that image of the poor fox covered in shackles, paying so very dearly for trying to help his best friend, pervaded his mind.

Down below he could see decrepit brick structures littering the hills. They had been there for quite some time, and judging from the area they were likely relics of the echidna tribes that had inhabited the island for several thousand years. Far be it from him to criticize their masonry, but this certainly wasn't as exciting as the spectacular ziggurats Sonic had encountered in the aptly named Mystic Ruins region. True, that wasn't too far from their current position, but there was a mountain between them that prevented any of the indigenous occupants from possibly encountering each other. The societies had been essentially isolated and developed independently, and it showed in their different styles of construction and tool-making.  
There were a number of mine shafts that stretched for miles underneath the mountain, completely unlit save for small fires that were maintained along the way. They remained largely unexplored because they went unreasonably deep and required time and manpower those sponsoring the expeditions couldn't possibly pay for. G.U.N. had been pushing for excavations ever since the Chaos incident, and Sonic could tell that had something to do with why he was being brought here. Though if it was, why this side of the mountain?

Sonic felt his stomach violently shift upward as the helicopter took a sharp dive and quickly pulled up, descending over the makeshift helipad below. It landed rather clumsily, which Sonic attributed to the pilot actively hating him, and a team was dispatched to meet it. A relatively short man surrounded by tall soldiers stood twenty feet away. Sonic glared at them. He was dressed all in beige with a large hat to protect from the harsh sun; stereotypical safari wear. Sonic chuckled at the thought of the man being confronted with a large animal he had no idea how to handle. "Oh my," he'd probably say before soiling his trousers.

The door kerchunked open, and Sonic was escorted out of the helicopter to meet the incredibly beige man.

"Dr. Regis Comstock," he introduced himself, shouting over the roar of the chopper.

"Sure," Sonic said indifferently and followed as he was led to a nearby building that had clearly been erected in all of two hours by poorly paid locals. The inside was rather run down, obviously not regularly maintained, and about the three immediately visible rooms there were tables topped with various anthropological oddities. Comstock took a seat on a chair in the middle of the room. Sonic did the same next to him.

"I'm sure Mr. Tower has explained why you've been brought here," he said.

Sonic made eye contact. "Something about delving into a mine. Nothing specific beyond that."

Comstock stood back up. "The chaos emeralds were forged in an area deep within the Earth, a place we believe these mines were intending to reach. We've been trying to survey the area, but alas, us humans are rather lackluster when it comes to such intensive activities."

"You want me to go down there, don't you?" Sonic sighed. "What do you expect me to find?"

"The Fountain. The place where the liquid chaos came from. We believe it to be the perfect source of endless renewable energy the world has been waiting for. This substance has the power to enrich the lives of everyone on this planet and we want you to help us make this a reality."

"That sounds suspiciously nice," said Sonic.

"I know you think G.U.N. is shady," Comstock replied, "but trust me, they're looking out for everyone. I've seen it first hand."

"Save me the PR speech. What exactly do I have to do?"

"We'll hook you a lifeline. It'll provide you with a feed to the outside world, power for lights, basically everything you'll need. Then you'll be deployed to rappel down into the deepest shafts we've identified. If you can locate some liquid chaos, use the equipment we've provided to collect a sample to report back to base."

"I want to speak to Tails," Sonic demanded.

"If you're cooperative that shouldn't be a problem." Comstock walked over to a desk and picked up a gemstone, toying with it in his fingers. "There's something big down there...and when we find it could change everything."

"Tails was just trying to help. Look, you've got the collar on me, I can't pull anything. Please let him go."

"I'm sorry, I have no control over that."

Sonic sighed and slouched in his chair. "This is going to be a long day. A looong day."

The next few hours saw Sonic being suited up for deployment. Rigged in full kevlar armor, night-vision goggles and platinum sneakers, it was the kind of badass look he'd really appreciate if it weren't for the dire situation. He would've given anything to enjoy a nice long look at himself posing in the mirror, maybe do a little victory jig, but he couldn't dare focus on such menial things. One thing and one thing only was at the forefront of his mind: locating this fountain they were talking about to negotiate Tails' release.

The cable groaned as the pulleys began to move. Sonic, suspended at the end of the cable, slowly descended down the shaft, his light barely penetrating the depths. It was very moist down here. The walls were slick and covered with mildew, and there was a distinct stench of rot whose origin Sonic dared not question. Time passed. At approximately twelve hundred feet below ground, Sonic reached a stable surface. He unholstered a large pistol and fired a sticky light against the far wall. Upon impact it immediately illuminated the cave, revealing the cragged formations and various tunnels in the surrounding area.

"OK, I've reached the first checkpoint," Sonic said into his receiver. "Where do I go from here?"

"There should be a seemingly bottomless pit approximately fifty feet to the north," Comstock replied, his voice distorted by the poor signal. "We need you to affix another pulley next to it so you may descend to the next checkpoint."

"Got it."

Sonic did as he was told, and shortly found himself an additional thousand feet further underground. This same pattern went on for some time. Sonic would reach a checkpoint, find another shaft and descend further. After several hours he'd finally had enough.

"Can I take a breather?"

"You're almost there."

"Ugh," Sonic groaned. "I'll take your word for it."

Within moments he gracefully landed on the ground and deployed a sticky light. Wait. Hold on a moment. This...this place is different. There was a distinct trickling of a metallic liquid on the far side of the cavern, and the surrounding walls were clearly artificial. Brick. They were brick. Somebody had been down here before. Pictograms adorned the walls. Sonic didn't recognize them, and they didn't even remotely resemble any language he was familiar with, but they were clearly articulate words and phrases. There was a very distinct pattern and order to them. Up above, pointed crystalline formations hung from the walls, surreptitiously pulsating in color. They were in all probability related to chaos energy in some manner, but testing would be needed to determine exactly how. But that was precisely the kind of thing he was down here to work on in the first place.

Sonic retrieved his camera and began snapping pictures. The crystals seemed to react to the bright flash. It was as if they were absorbing the photons and emitting them back a lower rate, resulting in a brighter glow. Sonic tried to take as many pictures as possible of the pictograms in particular.

"There's some sort of structure down here," he reported. "Made of bricks. It's covered in symbols of some sort, like some ancient language. I took a load of pictures; you might be able to figure out what it says."

"We've already received them," Comstock responded. "We'll begin translation attempts as soon as possible."

"And the other thing, there's a metallic substance trickling out of a hole in the wall. The bricks, I mean. It kind of looks like mercury. That's what we're looking for, right?"

"Very well could be," said Comstock, himself unsure. "Retrieve a sample immediately."

Sonic had only filled two vials when he was startled from his work by a sudden noise behind him; something living. It wasn't a particularly alarming noise in of itself, but there wasn't supposed to be anything else down here. What the hell could be lurking down so deep? He turned around and prepared for the worst, but froze in his tracks. It was a chao. Huh.

"Comstock, I just found a chao down here."

"A chao? What does it look like?"

The chao looked utterly alien to Sonic. While it held to the same general physiology as a normal chao, there was something distinctly off about it. Its eyes had an unnatural, iridescent gleam; probably due to refraction of light in the retina. It was most definitely adapted to seeing in the dark, which was understandable considered it lived at depths even Knuckles wouldn't dare dig to.

"Well, it's white," Sonic began. "It's got a very round head, claws on its hands, and its eyes are really weird. I think it's got no wings. I've never seen one like it before."

The chao hissed and charged at Sonic, who flinched and sidestepped in an attempt to avoid it. However, instead of attacking him, it quickly diverted itself to the trickle of metallic liquid and began lapping at it. Sonic stared in abject confusion as the chao's flesh, before completely opaque, seemingly phased into a liquid before slowly transitioning back to its original state.

"OK, that's freaking weird." Sonic slowly walked back over to the liquid, kneeled down, deployed his sample analysis kit and filled an additional five vials "There. I've got a sample of the liquid chaos," he said, placing the vials into a pouch and zipping it shut. "I think."

"Very good," said Comstock. "Now there's someone here who wants to talk to you."

"Sonic?" came a weary voice.

"Tails!" Sonic exclaimed. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. What's going on down there?"

"There's a weird chao and something that looks like mercury pouring out of a brick wall. I got a couple vials of the stuff, but I kinda wanna get out of here now. I think it might bite me."

"They want me to run the sample analysis when you get back," Tails explained. "Apparently they have a use for the both of us."

"Gah!" Sonic yelled.

"What? What is it?" Tails asked.

Sonic flailed as the chao, phasing into a liquid state, began dissolving his rappelling cable. His literal lifeline was being eaten away. Bubbles formed and steam hissed as the metallic compound began to melt. He tried to pull the chao off the cable, but alas, his hands simply passed right through its liquid body.

"It's eating the damn cable!" Sonic yelled. "Pull me up! Pull me up!"

Fifteen feet up was as far as he made it before the cable gave way. Sonic plummeted to the ground, knocking himself unconscious against a boulder.

Then the chao went down his throat.


	3. Nothing Wrong, Except Everything

**Chapter III**

 **Nothing Wrong...Except Everything**

A lone figure sat in the middle of a large, empty expanse. The room was very poorly lit, though the flickering light in the center cast a dim if inconsistent glow across the metallic walls. The figure was, with the help of a book light, reading a trashy novel as she waited for her orders to come in. She'd been sitting like this for hours and wanted more than anything to take a walk and stretch her legs, but that was out of the question; this mission was in direct response to a sudden and complete change in their targets' activities, and there was no way in hell she was going to miss it over minor discomfort.

There came a glow from the floor, which then emitted a hologram. It wasn't the stereotypical flickering messy-signal type, either; it was completely clean and opaque, utterly life-like except for its tiny size. The projection was not of someone, but of an object, helpfully identified by several lines of text which included its disproportionately minuscule weight.

"We need you to fly out and collect it. Mission profile incoming." The hologram flicked into seven paragraphs of text, preceded by the words "TOP PRIORITY".

The lone figure smiled, and said, "It will be done." She reached into her pocket and retrieved a data stick, plugged it into the holo-display and downloaded the information. Well, this was unexpected. She was all gung-ho to go on a dangerous mission and this was just stealing an inanimate object. Oh well. Enjoyable or not, this was the most important thing in the world right now. Anything for the cause.

Anything.

* * *

Knuckles lay next to the Master Emerald, sleeping. It had been yet another normal day in an endless series of quite hideously normal days. In fact, if Knuckles had one more normal day, he figured he may as well adorn himself with a rainbow wig and strum a banjo just to inject some, well, _life_ into life. But no, that was just a silly thought. It's not like he even knew where you would shop for a rainbow wig, or if such a garish thing were even available to the general public. Oh well. It didn't really matter. Everything was stable. If true happiness came from stability, then Knuckles, like it or not, had the happiest life of them all.

Which of course made it so much more ironic when he fell from his high horse that very night. There wasn't a dramatic battle. There wasn't even an anticlimactic scuffle. The Master Emerald just...wasn't there anymore. He had dozed off one minute, only to awake to the newly empty shrine. Well, wasn't this just a kick in the teeth? Knuckles stared in bemusement, scanning the immediate vicinity for any signs of the emerald. Nothing. Zilch.

"Oh," he said, flatly, like a parent after watching their child utterly butcher Tchaikovsky at recital night.

* * *

Sonic twitched involuntarily. He felt a sharp pain in his thigh and let out a huge gasp of air, but he couldn't breathe. Something was in his throat. Something moving. Sonic flailed helplessly, trying to dislodge whatever it was, until all of a sudden the liquid that was the chao spewed out of his mouth, floated through the air and formed back into its original opaque state. The chao hissed at him, as if just for a final "screw you" before it scuttled away into the darkness. Sonic fell to his side, heaving, gasping for the precious air he had gone so long without. After maybe two minutes or so, he felt composed enough to contact base.

"Guys...the chao...it turned into a liquid and went inside me."

"What?" Tails asked, not entirely sure what to make of that series of words.

"It's gone now." Sonic coughed, messily. "It just...it went into my mouth and then I coughed it up when I woke up. I don't know. I'm freaking out here."

"Are the samples still intact?" Comstock asked.

Sonic reached for his kit. Phew. The vials were still there. "Yeah," he answered. "I've still got them. I just don't know how I'm gonna get back up."

"That shouldn't be an issue," said Comstock. "Now that you've successfully finished your reconnaissance mission, we can send a team down to meet you. We'll get you back up and...get you some medical attention. Hopefully, that chao didn't do anything nasty, but, chances are, it did."

Sonic shivered. "I don't even want to think about it. Just get that team down here. And bring Tails to the dig site. I want to see him when I get back up."

"He's already on his way. We want him to run the analysis of the liquid chaos," Comstock replied.

Sonic smiled for the first time in what felt like years. "Good."

* * *

Having finally been rescued, Sonic trudged his way back across the field to the dilapidated building in which he had originally discussed the mission with Comstock. Upon entering his mood rose at the sight of Tails, no longer shackled, sitting in a chair.

"Hey," said Sonic, not really sure of how to start.

"I'm sorry-" Tails began.

"Don't." Sonic held his hand out. "Don't do this to yourself. You didn't know. There's nothing to forgive. Just don't worry about it at all."

Tears welled up in Tails' eyes. "I'm sorry...I should've known what I was getting myself into."

Sonic looked down at the floor. "No, no, you were just trying to help. It's fine. I really mean it. You didn't do anything wrong."

Tails let out a sob but tried his best to restrain it. "I...I'm sorry..."

Sonic sighed. "I know..."

Tails looked back up, his eyes now red with tears. "Are you OK? The chao didn't hurt you or anything did it?"

"I don't think so...like, I mean, it hurt when it came back up, but I don't think it left anything. I need to get checked out by the medical team to be sure, though."

"If you die..." Tails stuttered, not even wanting to broach the subject. "If you die," he repeated, "...it'll be my fault..."

Sonic walked over to Tails and put his hand on his shoulder. "Don't say that. It's going to be OK. I promise." He knew this wasn't a promise he could guarantee, but that didn't matter; he just wanted Tails to feel better. He silently cursed the shock collar. Without it, he could've so very easily just taken Tails and run the hell out of there; end of story. Unfortunately, life wasn't quite so forgiving.

"You did good," came Comstock's voice from outside the door. Sonic turned around, sighed, and walked over to him.

"Can I go now?" Sonic asked as deliberately rudely as he could, almost preemptively snarking at the answer he knew would come.

"G.U.N. is pleased with your work. They do have another mission for you, but it doesn't go into action until tomorrow. Until you're called upon, you and Tails are free to roam the immediate grounds. Who knows, maybe you'll stumble into some archaeological oddity my men have missed."

"Well," Sonic conceded, "that's better than nothing. I guess." As he turned back around to Tails, he thanked whatever luck had given him the seemingly pleasant Dr. Comstock over Commander Tower. "Hey, Tails! After I swing by the medical tent, you wanna take a walk? If we stay in this general area, they don't really care where we go!"

Tails was curled up on the floor, seemingly hiding from the world around him. He raised his head and nodded, figuring a nice brisk walk to clear his head would be far better than mentally beating himself up. He slowly stood and joined Sonic at the door. "I'm-" he almost instinctively began to apologize, but Sonic cut him off.

"Don't. It's not going to make you feel any better. Just wait here for me to get back, OK?"

Tails cast a pitifully forlorn look, mentally continuing his apology spree.

Sonic traveled to the medical tent for his checkup, which went fully without incident. In fact, alarmingly without incident; there was absolutely nothing wrong with him. Or, at least, there was nothing detectably wrong with him. Somehow, that was even more worrying than if he had been straight-up ill from whatever that liquid chao was. If it went inside him, there had to have been a reason. And, generally speaking, when a creature goes inside you it probably doesn't have your best interests in mind. One thing was for sure, though: Tails was not to know of these concerns. He already felt responsible for everything that had happened today, so the last thing Sonic wanted was to pile more stress on him. He'd been through enough already. Sonic had been assured that he was fine and, for all Tails would know, that was all there was to it.

He made the short trek back to the house where Tails was waiting, only to find him curled up again on the floor. Sonic sighed, almost a little annoyed by Tails' behavior. He tried to keep in mind the fox was just a child. Sonic cleared his throat, cueing Tails too shoot back onto his feet in a transparent attempt to hide his recent proximity to the floor.

"Sonic! Are you-"

"I'm fine, Tails. You don't have to worry anymore. There's nothing wrong with me."

Tails let out a sigh of relief, as a large amount of the emotional weight he'd been carrying dissolved. Even if they were in this mess because of him, at least Sonic was OK. At least it hadn't gotten any worse. "So, about that walk..." he began.

"Sure thing, buddy. Let's see if we can't find some cool ruins to check out."

Tails smiled. "Awesome," he said, and he really meant it.

While there was nothing wrong with Sonic - at least, again, nothing detectably wrong - there was a fair amount of liquid chaos extracted with the stomach pump. Not exactly as planned, but this was considerably larger of a sample than he had collected

The analysis of the liquid chaos produced some very interesting but nonetheless inconclusive results. The temperature read at a very consistent and exact 24.592 degrees Celsius regardless of any environmental changes introduced. Spectrographic analysis showed that the substance was radioactive, though only mildly. It was recommended that those in close contact with the substance wear protective lead-lined suits, but Tails shrugged this off on the grounds that even several days of direct exposure wouldn't result in more than a chest X-ray's worth of radiation.

Tails requisitioned a number of lab rats to begin testing how the liquid would interact with an organism if it all. He was, however, denied this request. G.U.N. wished to perform the animal testing themselves as this was the primary reason they had extracted this batch.

That was most definitely suspicious. But for now, there was no way of doing the tests himself. There was certainly no feasible way for him to acquire his own sample. The mines had been locked down tight ever since Sonic's initial spelunking.

This was yet _another_ massive and pressing question to add to a pile already in danger of collapsing under its own weight into a singularity. But at least for a few minutes Tails and Sonic could relax and put their minds on other things.

They had both independently come to the conclusion that, aside from the obvious need to allow them some level of respite to remain useful, the main reason they had been allowed to take a walk was simply to watch and see if they were stupid enough to run for it. It seemed a pretty clear test, and they weren't about to give in to the temptation and get either electrocuted or exploded.

Although they were both thinking this, neither approached the subject aloud; if it was so out of the question, why even burden themselves with another discussion of how screwed they were?

The two ventured over to a series of broken down stone structures arranged in a row, perhaps the millennia-old dwellings of Ah Canul tribesmen.

"Pretty dilapidated," Sonic commented. "Almost as bad as your house." He chuckled and slapped Tails on the back. Tails responded by playfully punching him in the shoulder, just hard enough to betray his mild legitimate offense to the joke.

"Hey, at least I'm _allowed_ to have a house, Mr. On the Lam."

Sonic chuckled but quickly attained a more somber look. "I've missed this, you know?"

Tails sighed. "Me too."

Sonic paused for quite a while, sorting out in his head what he wanted to say. "I really hate to even bring it up...but what do you think is gonna happen to us? Every part of me wants to promise I'll protect you, but I'm really starting to..." He trailed off. "I...for the first time ever, I don't know that I can keep you safe. And that terrifies me. I can't help but feel like I'd be lying if I told you I would." He was so focused on Tails he had already forgotten to worry about being attacked by an unknown invasive organism. He was almost struggling to be concerned for himself in the first place with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Tails looked him dead in the eyes. "Sonic, this is not your fault. You can't burden yourself with always needing to protect everyone around you. Sometimes you just can't do anything. All those people who drowned in Station Square when Chaos leveled the place, you can't think of it like you failed to save them. All those people who survived, you did that. You saved them. You're the reason they're still here today. I don't know what's going to happen to us, but I need you to know that you aren't alone on this. We're in this together. Whether we get out of here alive or not, it's not on either of us. We just need to do what we can. I'm here to support you too. I know you feel crushed under the weight of what's going on...but I feel if you were in a better place this is the speech you'd give me." He barely paused. "Besides, it's my fault we're here."

"Tails..." Sonic groaned. "It's G.U.N.'s fault we're here. I mean if you wanna play the blame game with me, I could easily pin it on myself for making the whole thing possible. They used you because they wanted to get to me. Besides, this liquid chaos stuff is supposed to be some kinda medical miracle. That's what they got you doing. You're not hurting anyone."

Tails really didn't know what to say at this point. "I..." he began, mirroring Sonic by trailing off immediately. "I guess we can't help but feel responsible in our own way. But it goes both ways. If I can't blame myself for us being here, you can't blame yourself if anything happens to us. I know it's easy to say that, but I just need you to hear it from me now in case I never get to tell you."

Sonic sighed once again. He patted Tails on the head. "Thanks, little buddy. But please don't say it that way, even if it might be true."

"Sorry," said Tails, feeling like the word had lost all meaning after such repetition.

"Don't be. Now come on, let's go look around some more."

"Sure thing, Sonic!" Tails said with clear excitement, for once the one putting up a strong facade to keep up the team spirit. If nothing else, he had maybe grown up just a little bit in the past few hours. But he made a mental note to superficially fix up his house if he ever got the chance, just so nobody would give him crap for it.

* * *

Having returned that evening from his walk with Tails, Sonic wasn't overly thrilled to learn his second mission would be to retrieve the Master Emerald; in no small part due to how boring and obvious the idea felt, but he was definitely in no position to refuse it.

He was also slightly curious about why G.U.N. hadn't stolen it themselves ages ago, but reasoned, very but not entirely accurately, that the government would never have condoned the action and that using him to carry it out gave them plausible deniability.

Which almost certainly meant there was a chance this could go horribly, horribly wrong.

Despite this, Sonic was very relieved to learn that Tails would be permitted to join him on this particular endeavor. If nothing else, this little two-man quest could harken back to days he had been wishing dearly to return to, and this was no small comfort in light of everything that had happened to him over the past twenty-four hours.

Tails was finding himself increasingly of the opinion that collars would be a cruel and unusual punishment even if they hadn't been capable of liquefying his head. He was already guilt-tripping himself quite a fair deal already, so it seemed unnecessary of them to graciously provide complimentary punishment.

"It's not enough that they blackmail you into doing their bidding," came the fifth slight variation of this same thought in the past ten minutes, "but they have to really rub the sheer feeling of powerlessness into you. Like being scared and humiliated will help you work more efficiently." Sonic was more or less in agreement, but he didn't comment. Tails was already agitated, and feeding into it would be nothing but a hindrance to both of them.

"You know, running isn't actually my thing," came an attempted change of subject.

Tails paused, very briefly. "Running is so definitively your thing."

"Dude, if some guy paces in the back of a room while brainstorming, you wouldn't call him, like, Pacing Man or whatever. I run when I want to think. It turns the world into a blur; nothing matters but me and my thoughts."

"Poetic," said Tails, "and you don't end up covered in grease and oil like I do."

"Don't sell yourself short. You're basically a kid and you can put a plane together."

Tails smiled. "Sonic," he began wryly, "I'm objectively filthy a solid seventy percent of my waking life. That's not up for debate."

But was he _really_ joking? Sonic took a mental note that someone as perceptive as Tails would definitely see through his not-particularly-subtle attempts at self-esteem boosting and decided to hold off unless he found a real excuse to say such things. Maybe he was just being paranoid. After all, their talk at the ruins had felt, well, shockingly mature and collected on Tails' part for how much of a mess he seemed to be. Maybe he was just joking.

"You think _you're_ filthy?" he jumped in on the self-deprecation game. "You should smell me after a run."

"Yeah," said Tails, curtly. "I can."

"Shut up!" Sonic playfully returned fire, bonking Tails on his shoulder. "At least I don't live in the 'Before' picture for a renovation ad."

Tails fell silent. He quickly faked a laugh but was starting to really resent jokes about his house. He had things the way he liked them. Why was it on him to modify his own home to satisfy other people's arbitrary standards? "Yeah," he said through a fake smile, "I'll fix it someday."

"Dude, I could help! Just give me a call, I'll be there lickety-split."

"Call? On what?"

"I dunno. Maybe these dumb collars have a phone in them."

Tails faked another smile but mentally sighed. He was officially done with joking at this point; every comment felt like a further reminder of his failure as a friend or even a person in general. He couldn't take own his motivational speech seriously. This truly was his fault, wasn't it? He couldn't believe Sonic couldn't see it. He had a damned explosive wrapped around his neck and it was wholly because Tails had...he had betrayed him. He had sold him out. The true enormity was still only just truly sinking in on him; what he had done, and what he was soon to do. "I...I gotta go," said Tails.

"Go?" Sonic asked, slightly concerned at the vague phrasing. "Go where?"

"I just need some time to think."

"Hey." Sonic frowned. "You can talk to me."

"Not about this. Not this. I just..I need to be alone."

Sonic stood there in silence. "I know I'm bad with this personal feeling junk, but...look, buddy, I love the hell out of you. Keep your chin up, OK? Don't go too far."

Tails didn't smile. He merely walked away. Sonic buried his face in his hands and sighed, feeling like he had somehow said all the wrong things.

Tails' alone time didn't last. Setting out slightly earlier than they'd anticipated, the two were rushed aboard the chopper that would in three hours deliver them to the outskirts of the floating Angel Island. After disembarking, they were to make the relatively short trip to the Shrine of the Master Emerald where they would, if necessary, tranq Knuckles, secure the emerald and return it to the landing site. It would then be secured a harness, affixed to the chopper and transported back the Mystic Ruins dig site. Sonic objected on the grounds that taking out Knuckles himself would save on dart money that could be better invested on anger management lessons for Commander Tower, a suggestion that was met with a series of poorly concealed chuckles from the pilot and his escort.

The three armed soldiers initially intended to be sent along as backup had been dropped from the mission profile after Tails was able to convince Tower that a shootout would only result in the Master Emerald being shattered into pieces that had a nasty habit of flying off in random directions. This would have been a good thing since it'd keep it out of the hands of G.U.N., but Tails' real motivation was a concern for Knuckles' safety. Tranquilizing and robbing him was bad enough, but if he got shot...well, Tails wasn't sure he could ever recover from getting a friend killed.

"This has to stop," he whispered to Sonic, surreptitiously as he could manage. "I set off an uncontrollable chain reaction. They know they can get to you through me, and they can get to me through you. We're complimentary Achilles' heels here. Either we both get out or..." Tails froze. The collar was recording every word. He'd completely forgotten about it.

"Yes," came Tower's voice over through a tiny speaker on the collar. "These 'dumb collars' have phones."

Tails clenched his eyes shut in preparation for a shock. There was an extended lull. He opened his eyes. "Is...is the shock broken?"

"No," said Tower. "This mission is too important to incapacitate you. But make no mistake, if you deviate from the operation in any way, there will be _dire_ consequences."

* * *

Approximately four hundred meters from the Shrine, Sonic and Tails were hiding behind a thistle bush. There was no one here to hide from but, given the circumstances, they didn't want to take the risk of being spotted no matter how nonexistent.

"Let me handle this," said Tails. "I can fly in and nab it without a sound. You may be fast, but your feet make a heck of a lot of noise."

"Good point." Sonic gave a pause, clearly frustrated. "They've turned me into freaking Eggman, stealing the Master Emerald for some diabolical plot. I feel like punching myself."

Tails had no idea how to respond, so he settled with, "Be right back," twirled his twin tails and helicoptered his way towards the Shrine. Within thirty seconds he could make out Knuckles' silhouette against the glow of the Master Emerald, and in another forty-five he was hovering five feet above it. Gingerly descending, he wrapped his arms tightly around the Emerald and lifted it out of its rightful place. Knuckles continued to dream obliviously.

Tails smiled, trying to glean what little satisfaction he could from pulling off the least ethical thing he'd ever done with grace and finesse. Though bizarrely weighing less than him, the sheer size of the Emerald made it extremely cumbersome and quite difficult to keep a grip on, so he made sure to make his return flight low to the ground. He fully expected to drop the emerald multiple times, but that likely wouldn't be much more than a minor annoyance once he was no longer at risk of waking Knuckles.

Sonic was beginning to worry. Even under normal circumstances, waiting around with nothing to occupy himself with was unbearable, let alone doing so while his friend could very well getting a beating for what he was attempting to do. Oh no, that was it, wasn't it? Tails hadn't been able to pull it off. What if this mission was a test of his competence as an operative? What if they decided he was of no use and set off the explosive? That was it, Sonic couldn't wait any longer. He floored it, running full tilt toward the shrine and slowing upon final approach on the off-chance that nothing had actually gone wrong.

Sonic let out a huge sigh of relief. The Master Emerald was missing; Tails had pulled it off. But wait, he was supposed to meet Sonic back where he'd been waiting. Was he...oh no, was he making a run for it? Was he baiting them to explode the collar, shattering the Master Emerald to keep it out of G.U.N.'s hands? True, he'd been blaming himself for all of this, and true, his emotional state had been as far from his chipper, precocious self as Sonic had ever seen, but...he couldn't be that far gone, not so soon. Not Tails.

But what could he do? He had no idea where Tails had gone, and as soon as he reported back to G.U.N. that would be curtains. Wait. The collars have tracking devices. If he could just convince them to let him live-no, Tower would never allow it. Tails was...Tails was going to die, and there was absolutely nothing Sonic could do about it.

"Oh, fuck..." he mumbled, utterly paralyzed. What could he do? Look for Tails himself? No, he hadn't a clue where to start, and running off himself would only get his collar detonated.

He had to tell them. He had to beg them to not to detonate in exchange for catching Tails himself.

Assuming they hadn't already done it.

Assuming they hadn't already blown his brains out.

Sonic charged back toward the helicopter. He'd never felt so panicked in his life. He suddenly felt so slow. Why couldn't he run faster? Tails' life depended on it! Run, you stupid son of a bitch! Do you _want_ him to die?! Do you _want_ that poor boy to be vaporized? No matter how much it hurts, _force yourself!_ You _have_ to do this! He's never needed you more!

Sonic stumbled to a breathless halt at the helicopter.

"Where is Tails?!" barked Tower over the radio, as the pilot looked on.

"I can help you find him! I'll do _anything_ to help you find him! I don't know where he went, but _please don't kill him!_ Please! I'll do anything!"

"The fox is a liability," said Tower to the pilot. "Detonate the DDC and bring Sonic back to base."

Sonic didn't waste a second. "NO!" he screamed, lunging at the pilot.

Sonic was stopped in his tracks and thrown seizing to the ground by the shock collar. He grimaced through the pain, struggling but unable to regain voluntary control of his limbs. It couldn't end like this! Not like this...

The pilot, holding the control pad for Tails' collar, keyed in the detonation code and pressed the button.

A pause.

Silence.

Sonic' DDC ceased shocking him, leaving him heaving on the ground. Completely overwhelmed, he began to cry. He didn't even care who saw it. It didn't matter anymore.

It was all over now.


	4. Run For It

**Chapter IV**

 **Run For It**

Knuckles stood over the unconscious body of Dr. Eggman. He hadn't been planning on knocking the scientist out, but after so many lies you can't keep a good fist down. Obviously, the man knew where Sonic and Tails were and was refusing to talk. The two had been missing for days, and honestly, where else could they be off to if not something to do with Eggman?

The long dark corridors of the base flickered obnoxiously as the power system repeatedly failed and restored itself. Everything was a dull military grey color, matte finish, with black trim in the corners. Various metal doors lined the walls leading to different rooms, protected by keycard locks. The entrance to the base had been smashed open by Knuckles, who given the public knowledge of the facility was able to locate it fairly quickly.

"Great," said Knuckles, mentally slapping himself for knocking Eggman out cold. You can't question an unconscious person. Knuckles scanned about the hangar bay and noticed the Egg Carrier III, which up to this point he had been too focused on punching to notice.

"Holy crap," he muttered. This thing wasn't nearly the size of the original Egg Carrier, but it was certainly a sight to behold; a giant metallic arrowhead covered in ridges, ramjets on both sides and a command module sticking out the top. Towards the front tip, the craft was lined with windows but Knuckles could not see through their reflective gloss.

He decided to investigate the base further, as he was not able to just hack into Eggman's mainframe and peruse information as he pleased. His aptitude with computers ended with knowing how to turn them on and off, and that's assuming the button was large and helpfully lit. He didn't see the point of making a machine do things you could do yourself; it just seemed lazy. He exited back through the now seriously ajar door into a corridor and scanned the area. Not much to look at. Not much at all besides Abacus' destroyed remains, as Knuckles had taken him out on the way in. Eggman would be in need of yet another assistant.

Several hours of searching through the base yielded no useful results (though it did many more destroyed robots), and at this point Knuckles had ascertained that there was very little chance of him just stumbling across a valuable nugget of information about Sonic and Tails' whereabouts simply by blundering between arbitrary rooms. The one interesting thing he'd found had been some set of blueprints for an aircraft - triangular much like the Egg Carrier III - with the letters ZP printed in a number of places and a lot of technical jargon. He couldn't make any sense out of it, and rightly figured that drawings of weird airplanes were not going to get him his friends back. It was time to return to the start and wait for Eggman to wake up.

"OK, let's give this another try," said Knuckles as Eggman groaned, shifting about on the floor trying to remember where and who he was and how eggs worked.

The only noise he could produce was, "Whaaaa?"

"Sonic. Tails. Tell me where they are or you'll be in a world of pain." Pause. "Again."

Eggman was out of it, but he was starting to figure that refusing to talk was exactly the wrong move. It made sense, so he spilled the beans. "Tails is the one who stole the Master Emerald."

Knuckles stared at him for a moment, and held out his hand. "How many fingers am I holding-wait, no." Knuckles quickly corrected himself upon noticing that his boxing gloves did not distinguish his fingers. "I mean, uh, can you tell me your name?"

"G.U.N. took Sonic and Tails. They've coerced them into doing missions by threatening each other's safety. One of those missions was to steal the Master Emerald, which vanished in the middle of it. Tails too."

"Vanished?!" exclaimed Knuckles with bemusement. "How the hell could he and my emerald just vanish?!"

"You need to talk to the Minutemen. They're the only ones who can help you find Sonic. I'll take you to them on one condition."

"One condition?" Knuckles repeated, not looking forward to the answer.

"Help them. Help them destroy G.U.N.. They're out of control and I'm sure they're aiming to take control of the entire planet. I've been secretly funding the Minutemen and giving them weapons and technology to fight back, but I can only do so much with every agency watching me like a hawk. Wait..." He looked over behind Knuckles and spotted the blueprint on the floor. "That blueprint, have you been going through my things?"

"Have you ever cleaned this place?" asked Knuckles.

"We need to bring that blueprint. It's for a Zero Point Cloakable Space Plane, the culmination of over a decade of my work." He emphasized this with a prideful smile. "It is essential that they build this. Absolutely everything hinges on it."

"Enough talk," said Knuckles gruffly. "Take me." He'd noticed Eggman hadn't said anything about finding Tails. He pressed the matter as they departed, but it seemed Eggman genuinely didn't know. Since he's given up everything else, Knuckles decided to give the scientist the benefit of the doubt.

* * *

Sonic sat in the cold interrogation room, the same dull look affixed to his face. They had been grilling him for thirty-six hours, and only now seemed to be considering that he might be legitimately clueless about what Tails had been trying to do.

"Could you give me five minutes? Just five minutes?" Sonic sighed loudly to further express his annoyance with the matter. He then leaned back in his chair and fell limp, staring at the ceiling. That water stain in the corner had grown ever so slightly. How almost interesting.

"You'll hear from us soon," said Tower over the PA system, and it all fell silent once more. An eerie feeling of dread had descended upon Sonic. Obviously they had exploded the collar. Sonic was shooing any lingering thoughts of the connotations this had, but surely such an explosion would have shattered the Master Emerald. Were they trying to figure out the point of explosion, from which they could calculate the trajectories of the pieces and map their probable landing areas? This was it, then, wasn't it? But how could they not know where Tails had gone? There'd been a tracker on him the whole time. It didn't make any sense. What did they want the Master Emerald for, anyway?

But he couldn't keep the thoughts away forever.

Tails was dead.

In a flash Sonic's best friend had lost his life, a decade of memories and experiences wiped out like it was nothing. He couldn't cry. All he could do was stare into space, wishing that by some means he could have stopped this from happening. It didn't matter that he didn't directly kill Tails, this whole thing had been about him. He was the cause whether or not he had any control over how it went down.

Had Tails run? Had he deliberately bolted to trigger the explosive and shatter the Emerald? That was a brave, noble way to die, Sonic supposed. Fitting. Fitting for Tails to go out so courageously, so...wait. Now they had no leverage over Sonic. That meant...

That meant another one of his friends was definitely going to be brought into this mess.

Oh...

Days of uninterrupted silence, save for the delivery of food and drink, followed. Thanks to this, Sonic felt like his brain was turning back on from hibernation mode as Rouge the Bat entered the room. She was, abnormally for her, wearing a fairly drab G.U.N. uniform; a rather ill-fitting one as it was designed for human proportions. This is the sort of thing Sonic would normally chuckle at, but he was understandably not in the mood.

"Long time no see," Rouge smiled.

"Fuck off," Sonic snarled.

"Tower figured you'd rather talk to somebody you know."

Sonic shot her a glare. "You're seriously OK with all this?"

"Hey," said Rouge, holding up a metallic bracelet with a glowing green crystal embedded in it, "don't be so quick to judge what you don't understand. Once you have a grasp on the big picture, you'll probably be fully on our side." She handed him the bracelet. Sonic stared blankly. "Put it on."

"What is it?"

"It's a chaos drive."

Sonic paused. "What is it?"

"Artificial chaos energy. The latest in technology derived from Professor Robotnik's experiments with liquid chaos."

"So he knew where the fountain was?"

"That's how we found it."

"This bracelet," said Sonic, toying around with it, "what is this supposed to do exactly?"

"It'll behave like you're holding a chaos emerald," Rouge answered with a complete and total lie that had no resemblance to the actual function of the bracelet. "Should overclock you, so to speak. Give some extra umph."

"Umph?" Sonic repeated.

"Umph," said Rouge, again.

"Huh," said Sonic, and slipped it onto to his wrist. A very fuzzy feeling came over his entire body, not unlike strong painkillers. He wobbled uneasily in his chair, his vision tunneling quite a bit. He squinted. "Is it supposed to do this?"

Rouge shrugged. "I dunno. Probably? Tunnel vision? Warm, fuzzy feeling like the entire universe is giving you a hug?"

"Yes," Sonic confirmed. The effects slowly began to fade, something he welcomed with open arms. He definitely wouldn't want to spend any extended period of time wacked out like that. He felt lighter, though, almost as if he weighed nothing despite having the same solid presence as always. Strong. That was the word. He felt very, very strong. "I feel very, very strong," he said.

"You should."

Sonic sighed, rubbing his face. "...and what horrible reason do you have for giving me this power? Am I off to go ice somebody?"

"Maybe. We've uncovered several probable locations you might find this high-ranking member of the Minutemen." She slid him a series of photographs and a file. Sonic deliberately didn't take any kind of decent look, only making out enough from the corner of his eye to tell the target was a female fox. "We want you to bring her in. Be graceful, exercise some finesse. If she makes things too difficult, beat some information out of her. We'll provide you with a full list of questions. If worst comes to worst you are authorized to terminate her. You'll be given a silenced pistol, and of course a cleanup kit." Sonic just sat there, looking contemptuous. "I take it you understand."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it: 'do evil things'. Whatever. Look, I am not using a gun. I refuse to kill her. Hell, you know what? You don't have Tails anymore. You got nothing to hold over me, I'm not doing shit. Do what you want to me, I don't care anymore."

"Just let me say this: if you miss out on this mission, you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

Sonic was visibly amused by this. "No, I could happily miss out on all of this crap."

"You'll see," Rouge smiled. "Open the door!" she shouted, and seconds later it slid open. She exited, but Sonic was already in deep thought about why she would say something like that. Increasingly antsy, he started shaking his legs around, and within thirty seconds this had graduating to bouncing all over the place.

"CAN I RUN PLEASE?!" he shouted. "I DON'T CARE WHERE, I JUST CAN'T TAKE ANOTHER MOMENT CUFFED TO THIS CHAIR!"

For once the intercom responded. "Hold tight. We'll be deploying you very shortly. The helicopter will be on the far landing pad and you may run the distance."

Sonic didn't say anything. He couldn't believe they were doing him a favor. Well, it was probably just part of a plan to groom him into loyalty, but he didn't care.

Despite understanding the final goal, the execution of Sonic's mission was bizarrely unclear. He was simply told to "follow Rouge's lead" and she would dole out the information as necessary. The one conclusion he could draw from this was that he was going to be tricked into doing something a lot worse than killing somebody G.U.N. considered a terrorist, but not given enough information to ever figure out what it was. In a sick way, he had to concede that it was pretty damn smart of them.

As he was stepping off the helicopter in a wilderness area about twenty-eight miles west of Station Square, he was seriously considering making a run for it. Without Tails there was no reason for him to obey them. Terrified as he was of dying, he was even more terrified of living the rest of his life knowing had he played a part in advancing this evil organization's agenda, being fully responsible for every horrible thing they did because he helped them. He'd be no better than them. That was it...scared as he was, it was time to do the unthinkable and get himself killed. He had to. There was no other choice.

For a while he trailed behind Rouge, trying not to act suspicious. If they caught onto his plan they'd just electrocute him and that would be that. He had to get far enough away that they'd have no choice but to detonate the DDC, and he had to do extremely quickly. He'd never really thought about it before, but right now he hoped more than anything that there was an afterlife and that he wouldn't just cease to exist.

He took a deep breath. This was it. He had to go now. He bent down in preparation to launch himself forward as fast as he could possibly go. I'll see you soon, little buddy, he thought to himself.

"Stretching?" Rouge asked, smirking.

Sonic failed to conceal his surprise. He stared for a moment. "Yes," he finally responded with the straightest face he could muster. "That is definitely what I am doing." He proceeded to internally direct a number of swear words at himself for handling that so poorly.

She approached him. "Because I'd hate for you to run off," she said, whipping out the chaos drive bracelet, "before I could do this." She thrust the green crystal against the DDC. There was a horrible noise before the DDC disengaged and split open in the back, falling to the ground in front of Sonic. He stared in absolute, wide-eyed disbelief at the collar that only moments ago he had thought would unleash his ultimate demise, just laying harmlessly at his feet.

"Did you actually just do that?" Sonic asked, high-pitched.

"OK, we have less than five minutes before they get here to find out what happened." She pulled out a decently sized hard drive. "This is everything I could steal from G.U.N.'s databases. I need you to get this to the Minutemen as quickly as you possibly can. My contact will be waiting in a blue SUV outside the south entrance to the Station Square Mall. Plates are ZKS-1292. That's ZKS-1292; just try to remember the ZKS and you'll be fine." She handed him the bracelet. "Put this on so you can get away faster. You got all that? Blue SUV, ZKS plate, south entrance of the mall. Remember that."

Sonic nodded, completely overwhelmed by what was happening.

"And there's something you need to know: Tails is still alive."

"What?!" Sonic jumped. "Are you serious?! Where is he?!"

Rouge did her best to spit everything out as quickly as possible. "I don't know how, but his DDC got disabled and he disappeared with the Master Emerald. G.U.N. has no idea where he is. No matter where he's got to, he's away from them. You happy about that? Good, now hit me!"

Sonic gave a look of complete confusion. "Whaaa?"

Her voice only got more frantic. "Knock me out. I need to stay in play spying on G.U.N. from the inside, and the only way they won't think I helped you is if you knock me out cold. They'll kill me if you don't. I'll tell them you shorted the DDC with the bracelet and hit me as hard you could. No more talk, we're out of time. Hit me, dammit! HIT ME!"

Sonic, clearly extremely uncomfortable with it, socked her lights out and cringed at having done so. Regaining his composure, he quickly slipped the bracelet onto his arm and in stark contrast to his first experience with the thing felt a rush of adrenaline, like he'd just downed forty energy drinks. A far cry from the wonky, drugged-out feeling of last time. He jumped up in the air and upon landing proceeded to charge away into the wilderness, running a solid twenty percent faster than he ever could under his own power.

He didn't think much as he ran, he just felt the wind on his face and ground intermittently on his feet. He was just so glad to be free and unimaginably more glad to know that Tails was safe from G.U.N. that he'd just aimed himself roughly in the direction of the city and let his feet do the rest. And to think not five minutes ago he was mentally preparing himself to sacrifice his own life, but right now he couldn't care about that even if wanted to; he was finally free from G.U.N.. All he had to do was deliver the stolen hard drive to the Minutemen and then he could focus all his attention on finding Tails.

Ever since he'd been captured his life had devolved into an unyielding nightmare, but things were finally looking up. Maybe, just maybe everything would work out for the best after all.


	5. Safe

**Chapter V**

 **Safe**

The interminable darkness was suddenly broken by a painfully bright invasion of light as Sonic's blindfold was removed. He grimaced and closed his eyes. "Geez dude, turn the lights off please!" Despite his plea, the lights remained obnoxiously blaring "I already don't like you people," he muttered under his breath. "Can I have my blindfold back now?"

Sonic squinted around at his surroundings. The place looked like any old office building. There was even a water cooler with no cups in sight. He suppressed an urge to loudly declare it lame.

And along came the fox girl from the file, the one he'd been on a mission to kill not one hour ago. She didn't look a bit like Tails. Clearly very physically fit, she was dressed in a deceptively casual t-shirt and blue jeans as if to scream, "Look how nonchalant and unsuspicious I am."

"I believe that's for me," she said. Sonic glanced down at the metallic briefcase, in which the contact from the blue SUV had placed the hard drive for safekeeping. The trip over had taken two days, which Sonic was forced to shut up and deal with since he had no idea where they were going.

"This?" He pointlessly gestured at the briefcase, the only briefcase she could be talking about. "Yeah, the drive's on there. It's supposed to have a lot of information that Rouge stole from G.U.N. so I'm betting there'll be some useful stuff in there."

"Sonic the Hedgehog," she smiled. "I can't believe this is the first time we've met. My name is Nova. I'm the head of this ragtag group of misfits."

"Well, considering what the public thinks of you thanks to G.U.N.," Sonic observed, "I'm not surprised. It wasn't until recently that I even considered the idea that you guys weren't a bunch of evil terrorists blowing up school buses and crap like that."

"Trust me, we would never commit an act of violence against civilians. We're on their side." As she spoke she picked up the case and gestured at Sonic to follow her. They made their way down a long corridor. "The world is a cesspool of corruption, but G.U.N. are simply the most visible and immediate threat to our freedom. But even if they were to vanish our work would never be done." They stopped at a door, which she knocked on and opened. Inside the air immediately dropped in temperature, and any and all odor seemed to completely vanish. Computer banks lined the walls, surrounding a series of desks and tables that supported a not too insignificant number of desktop computers, three of which were manned by analysts; there was Drake, a panda wearing a t-shirt displaying a joke so filthy it doesn't bear repeating; Finn, a brown mink, who was noticeably bouncing his legs and mouthing inaudible words to himself at all times; and Sasha, a dark brown hedgehog who was already preparing to be very cold and obnoxious to Sonic in case he was planning to hit on her - I mean, he was also a hedgehog so obviously he would.

"Yo," said Sonic.

"Hi," responded Finn.

"What up, bro?" said Drake.

Sasha glared. "Go screw yourself, pervert."

"OK people," announced Nova, "this is what we've been waiting for."

"Four day weekend?!" asked Drake, excitedly.

"No, no, we've got it. We've got the hard drive Rouge promised, delivered by Sonic here." She paused in acknowledgement. Nobody clapped. Somebody coughed. Sonic, unsure of what to do, smiled and made a large, ambiguous gesture in hopes that they would move on. "We can't be sure what's on it, so the four of us are going to work diligently to determine how much of this information is at all useful. It's very likely much of the data is mundane and useless, but I can't imagine there's nothing on here we can use. Sonic, you're free to explore the premises or stay here with us."

"Uh, yeah." Sonic tried to be nice about it. "While I'd love to watch you guys sit at computers going clackity clack, I think I'm gonna go, like, take that look around the building. Because...you got this, right?" Nobody acknowledged him. "You do?" he said with his best impression of his positive side. "Super." He turned and exited the room, more than a little pissed off that nobody wanted to thank him. After all, he'd gone through hell to get them that hard drive. It seemed way more than a little ungrateful to not even get a "thank you" after so much hardship and sacrifice. He made a mental note to be passive aggressive about this forever - or at least until he stopped caring.

He knew he couldn't hold a grudge.

The computers having been prepped, Nova tried to gently place the case on the table but managed to somehow knock it directly onto her foot. "Son of a bitch!" she shouted, clutching the wounded appendage.

"How did you get to be in charge when you can't even put down a briefcase without hurting yourself?" said Drake, wryly.

"I'll be-I'll be right back," Nova groaned, "I think I broke it."

"Oh, you did not," Sasha pointed out, accurately. Nova hobbled her way out of the room.

"I think it'd be prudent to start without you then," said Finn.

"Yeah yeah yeah, go ahead!" Nova shouted back as she exited the room.

"Drama queen," Sasha muttered.

"Well, what are you gonna do?" Drake sighed. "I guess it's time to crack this baby open. Who remembers the unlock code?"

"It had a 4 in it," Finn pitched.

"It's letters, you doink!" Drake shot back.

Sasha stood up. "OK, guys, before we waste an hour trying to remember I'll just IM Duke. He has it." She sat down and began typing away.

"Who the hell thought a briefcase needed a bike lock anyway?" Drake complained at an unreasonable volume.

Meanwhile, Sonic was trying to figure out how to get a drink of water when there weren't any cups. He was about to go for it and just put his mouth on the thing when he spotted Nova hobbling by like she'd broken her foot.

"I broke my foot," she explained.

"What? How'd you do that?"

"The briefcase. It, uh, fell."

"Huh."

She hobbled past him. Sonic turned back to the water cooler and drank straight from the tap. It was far more satisfying than it should have been. Suck it, water cooler. No lack of cups can stop Sonic the freaking Hedgehog!

He thought in silent contentment of being at a party one day, kicking back and saying "Did I ever tell you about the time I escaped the clutches of an evil military empire?" Oh, man, would that be sweet. He'd really done it though. He almost couldn't quite believe it. He'd gotten away, and Tails was...safe? I mean, he kind of had to be, right?

Sonic tried to subdue any negative thoughts in his head. Now was a time for relief, some respite he'd truly earned. He would find Tails. He didn't think this, he knew it. Some time soon they'd be back together and he'd give him a massive bear hug and a sarcastic quip. That's what he had to look forward to. It was that moment he was fighting for.

He was given a room to stay in, although he couldn't shake the feeling that it probably belonged to a dead guy. Sonic had never quite stared death in the face before, but now he knew what it was to stand atop the precipice with full intent to jump; he had truly been planning to end his life. This disturbed him on a deep level. But...he hadn't gone through with it. He got lucky. But what if Rouge hadn't been a double agent? Then what?

Boom. Splat. Dead.

That's what.

But that wasn't the case. He was alive.

And so was Tails.

He was out there, somewhere. Sonic didn't know how, but he knew he was going to find him. He had to. This bond meant something. It meant something! Tails needed - no, Tails deserved to be found alive and well. If there was any kind of karmic justice in the universe, maybe, just maybe Sonic would be cut some slack on this front.

He laid face down in the bed. Sleep. Oh, for a proper night's rest in a real bed. He turned over onto his side, and gazed out the window. The half Moon hung glowing in the sky. It was eerily beautiful. He smiled, deeply relieved at even having a moment to enjoy such a view. This was a simple pleasure, here; gazing at the beauty of nature. Perhaps it wasn't so much in the grand scheme of things, but in that moment it was just about the most perfect feeling Sonic could've imagined. Peace. Contentment. Sanctuary.

He was in control.

He was finally free of danger.

Tails was out there somewhere.

They were finally safe.

* * *

Morning came far too soon, but there was much to be done. Today was supposed to be the day they would collect Amy and Cream, and bring them back to the Minutemen base for security. Sonic had been fairly adamant about this once he'd gotten the chance to talk to anyone remotely in charge, and even before his arrival at the base he had at least been promised it would be done.

He was feeling very uneasy. Despite his relentless attempts to think positive, there was this biting sense of dread that everything wasn't OK, that he was just lying to himself the same way he insisted to Tails that he was going to protect him. If he couldn't protect Tails, who's to say he could even protect himself?

Who's to say that hard drive was even going to contain anything useful when they finally hacked that briefcase open? As it turns out, the code that was supposed to unlock it just didn't work. Was it even the right one? Had he done all this for nothing? But...no, now he was just being unreasonably negative. That hard drive got him away from G.U.N., and that was a victory no matter what. Everything may have been back to square one, but at least he knew the score this time.

There he stood, Nova at his side, waiting for those final digits of the unlock code to be hacked. The banks of computers hummed like cicadas, winding up and down as tasks of varying intensity were processed. Sonic stood with unnatural focus, truly invested in unlocking the whatever secrets the hard drive may contain.

"How long does it take to open a suitcase?!" Drake demanded.

Sonic chuckled. He had really taken a liking to this bunch in the brief time he'd known them. A bit annoying at times, but simply being around a group of friends with their own back and forth antics was refreshingly mundane. He felt...happy. Even in that all too short free time with Tails at the Mystic Ruins there had been this terrifying sense of anxiety over their situation, an omnipresent lingering dread and panic. Finally feeling safe was overpowering. This almost felt...wrong. He shouldn't feel good. He should be feeling bad. Tails was still missing, after all, and his situation was still incredibly precarious. Why did he feel so good?

Perhaps best not to question it. Just enjoy it. When life gives you lemons and so forth.

"Almost got it," said Finn. "Two minutes and we'll be golden."

Sonic looked at the briefcase with apathy. He really couldn't get himself that excited over it. There's little chance it would contain any sort of game changer.

"Yeah," he said. "I'll be back. Ish."

His attitude had started to sink as he left the room. He was really beginning to feel like he was trapped in some sort of purgatory of helplessness. He really wanted to just go hunt for Tails, but that wasn't much of an option considering he had zero leads. As he walked down the hallway, out for another drink of water, he heard heard footsteps behind him. He turned around to see Nova. Heh. She wasn't hobbling any more. No way was her foot broken.

"Yo," he said, forcing a chipper tone.

"Don't worry, I think I have something for you to do," said Nova.

Sonic smiled. "Alrighty. What?"

"We want to hit the G.U.N. digsite in the Mystic Ruins."

"The one I was held at?"

"We need to retrieve a sample of liquid chaos. All things considered, we're sitting ducks unless we can harness that power."

"Geez, everyone wants that stuff."

"It is fairly important, yes."

"So you want me to go back down there?" Sonic shuddered at the thought of his last spelunking expedition. "How are we even going to get in? G.U.N. is all over that place."  
"Well..."

That was as far as Nova got before a massive ear-shattering shockwave sent them tumbling to the ground. Lights shattered and the remaining ones died. It was seven seconds before the ringing in his ears subsided and Sonic could get a bearing on his surroundings again, the corridor cast in an eerie red glow from the emergency backup lights. Oh come on. Not again. Not after everything he'd already been through. Why couldn't he just have some damn time to rest?!

"What the hell was that?!" Sonic exclaimed, climbing back to his feet. "It came from that way!" he pointed down the corridor towards the room they had both left just a few minutes earlier.

"Oh no, please don't let it be them," Nova begged. Sonic charged toward the COM Room and she followed in tow, but were stopped well short of it. The entire area was blasted open with the surrounding structure collapsed or barely standing. The epicenter was quite clearly in the COM Room. Nova leaned against the wall and slid down into a sitting position, clearly in shock. "They're dead..." she said quietly. "Oh my god, they're dead..."

Sonic crouched down to her, knowing he had to take the reins and be the leader. "Nova, please, pull yourself together. Rouge gave me a bomb, that has to be what happened. But think about it." Some tears rolled down her face. "Nova, think about it! That bomb was meant for us! We're supposed to be dead now!"

Nova was uneasy but regaining her composure. "We have to get out of here...they're gonna come for us."

"What? Why?"

"That bomb knew when to explode. I'm sure it had a listening device so they'd know when to detonate it. I mean it didn't blow up until they opened the case; that's when it could hear again!" She took a moment to breathe. "But if that thing was listening, why wouldn't they give it a tracking device too so they could move in on the place and take out everybody else?"

Sonic paused for a moment, unable the focus. The weight of the fact that he'd delivered the bomb that just killed three people had just begun pulling down on him, and it was pulling hard. "OK...they're coming. Do we have a place to go?"

"Yeah, we're only in the secondary hideout, the one we built..." She looked around at the wreckage. "...in case something horrible happened." She suddenly smiled.

Sonic looked confused at the shift in expression. "Why are you...?"

"My foot. It's better, I didn't break it after all." She sighed with relief.

Sonic took a second to think. "Wait, wait, when you say they're coming. Do you think they're sending soldiers or..." A look of panic suddenly gripped him. "Oh crap! Nova, where's the nearest military airfield from here?!"

"Euschistus Airbase, it's twenty miles north of here."

Sonic fell silent for just a moment. "WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!"

"What?"

"Drones! They're gonna send drones and wipe this place off the map!"

Nova stood up. "OK, we need to get everybody to the garage now."

At this point they made their way through the facility as quickly as they could to alert everybody. Sonic was completely unfamiliar with the layout and very concerned this would result in him missing somebody, something that given recent events would only add to the already ample guilt he was stewing in. Fortunately there were only two floors and a storage basement that nobody had been in for days, and within ten minutes the last people had made it down to the garage and taken a car. Sonic and Nova made sure no one else was behind them. Though Sonic could easily run by himself, he made it clear to Nova he'd join her in her car to make sure she was safe; the last thing he wanted was to leave her behind to die. When they were satisfied there was no one else left in the building, they hopped into the last SUV in the far back of the the garage, which was a very long and wide concrete room with a low ceiling. There was about fifty feet between them and the exit. The moment they'd both buckled she floored it.

She wished to God she hadn't floored it.

Seconds after she had, a massive rumble accompanied the entire front section of the building collapsed in front of them. Nova slammed the breaks but there just wasn't enough clear distance; they slammed head on into the rubble, shattering the windows and totaling the car. Sonic had screamed uncharacteristically before the crash, but now he wasn't saying much of anything. He was slumped forward in his seat, bleeding and unconscious. Nova was too, having slammed her forehead into the steering wheel. They remained there, unmoving, as the drone emptied its payload, completely destroying most of the building. Time grew dangerously close to the arrival of the second drone sent to finish the job as Sonic stirred from his unwanted slumber. He opened his eyes, totally unfocused, and gripped his head, grimacing. It hurt like didn't know it could hurt, and so did his right arm. He tried several movements with it and determined that it was either broken or horribly sprained. Either way it was now useless to him. He turned to Nova, who still seemed dead to the world.

"Nova..." said Sonic, reaching out and shaking her. She didn't respond. "Nova, wake up...we have to get out of here..." Still nothing. He undid his seatbelt, turned and undid Nova's, opened the passenger door and stumbled out, nearly losing his balance. He hobbled along around the back of the car to Nova's door. He reached to open it, but it was jammed. "Shit!" he cursed. He yanked repeatedly on the handle to no avail. He sighed loudly, and reached in through where the window used to be with his left arm to try and pull her out. It took a lot of struggling, but he managed to pull her through and lay her down on the ground next to the totaled car. With how hard even that excursion was, Sonic had to think that the chaos drive bracelet was the only thing keeping him on his feet by now.

He checked to make sure she was still breathing, which thankfully she was. He gently shook her. "Please...you gotta wake up, I can't carry you out of here. Please. There's not enough time to drag you out." Unsure of what to do, he pet the top of her head because that's what they did on TV in situations like this. "I don't want to leave you here...I really don't want to leave you here but I might have to..." He shook her harder, speaking at a much higher volume this time. "Come on! Wake up! Wake up, please! I'm begging you! Don't make me leave you here!" He shook harder and harder and got absolutely nothing. "WHY WON'T YOU WAKE UP?! COME ON!" He collapsed back into a sitting position next to her and buried his face in his hands, growling. He couldn't take this any more. Why couldn't he just left alone for one day? Why couldn't he have some time to rest? Why he couldn't he go just one day without something horrible happening to someone he cared about!?

He leaned back over her and resumed gently shaking her. "Nova, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry but I can't wait any longer...I can't..." He stood up and looked down at her. If only, if only his arm hadn't been broken he could've carried her out. Sonic began lightly jogging towards the back of the garage, constantly glancing back in hopes that she'd wake up at the last possible minute. That was when the entire building shook, and he knew exactly what that meant: the job was being finished by another drone. He opened the door and stared back. "Nova!" he shouted. "I'll come back for you! I don't care if I have to shift this whole building, I'll find you and get you to the hospital!" He turned and ran, letting the door softly fall closed. The garage fell silent, and its single remaining occupant remained completely unconscious, blissfully unaware of the continuing strikes of the final drone.

As he traveled through the building stepping over wreckage, Sonic was horrified to spot the body of somebody who didn't make it out first. He already felt responsible for the deaths of Drake, Finn and Sasha, but for his own psychological health he insisted to himself that he did everything he could have and this person was just horrifically unlucky.

Bursting out of a back exit, the first escape he could find, Sonic ran to give himself distance from any flying shrapnel before he looked back. He crouched down and looked at the facility. While he'd not seen it from the outside before, he could reasonably assume it hadn't formerly been the pile of rubble it now was. He ran, in a large circle around the building, to the front where the garage would have been. He could still see in the mounds of debris that the back of the garage was still standing, no doubt thanks to being built out of concrete. He didn't know if Nova would be safe, but if she'd been anywhere else in the facility there'd be no chance of it. He scanned the sky for the drone and spotted an extremely low flying triangular aircraft which was visibly armed and clearly manned, as it had cockpit glass. He could...he could take it out that low. Even if he couldn't, he had to try.

Sonic took a deep breath, his entire body aching horribly, and forced himself to charge in the direction of the approaching craft and spin-dashed himself up towards it with all the extra strength the bracelet afforded him. This turned out to an absolutely terrible idea, badly exacerbating his existing injuries. The craft lost control but managed to stay upright as it crashed, sliding across the roughly flat terrain and leaving a trail behind it. Sonic struggled to get up from the ground and limped to the aircraft.

"GET OUT OF THE PLANE!" he screamed, gasping for breath before he resumed. "GET OUT OF THE PLANE OR YOU'LL GET MORE OF THAT!" As the hatch opened Sonic assumed a fighting stance, not in any condition to follow through on it. He didn't even care what battalion of soldiers stormed out and pulled assault rifles on him; he was going to face them to the death. He had to protect Nova even if it was the last thing he did. Nobody would get her while he was still alive.

What he wasn't expecting to see was Knuckles walking out of the downed aircraft. Sonic paused, half convinced he was hallucinating from his head injury.

"Sonic?! What the hell happened here?!" Knuckles exclaimed.

Sonic went deer in the headlights, his train of thought having been utterly derailed by this sudden change of situation. "Drones took out the building!" he began with anxious bouncy gestures. "There's still somebody inside! Please, you gotta help me get her out! I'll explain everything when she's safe!" Sonic paused, noticing Eggman in the craft.

"He's here to help," Knuckles assured him. "It's fine. I'll follow you."

"I'll be here if you need me," said Eggman, wanting to feel useful.

"THE DRONES YOU IDIOT!" Sonic nearly screamed. "There's drones in the sky! You gotta move that plane right now! Come back around and get us or something, just get it out of the open! THERE'S NO TIME!"

"Relax!" Eggman tried to calm him. "I shot down the drones. You're safe."

Sonic froze again. He let out a massive exhale, and between the relief, all these emotions, and that still lingering anxiety for Nova he felt like he was about to burst into tears. He took a deep breath, holding it in. Not now. You can't break down now. Nova needs you. You're OK, man. Suck it up. You're safe again, just make sure she is too.

Sonic and Knuckles made their way through the same back entrance Sonic had escaped through. Traversing the inside of the building would've have been impossible without Knuckles, who was able to clear rubble with ease. When they got to the garage, Sonic was very concerned to find Nova still unconscious. He and Knuckles made their way over and Sonic crouched down beside her. He was ready to go back into the shaking routine when suddenly he had an idea. An idea that he wanted to punch himself in the face for not having had earlier. He slipped the chaos drive bracelet off of his arm and put it onto her arm. Within seconds her eyes began fluttering. Sonic did a head petting thing again, because he figured it'd comfort better now that she was actually aware of it. Once she was clearly conscious and aware, he smiled at her. "Hey there. I know you won't remember, but I told you I'd come back for you."

Nova smiled back. "How...how long have I been out?" She noticed Knuckles. "What's he doing here?"

"I needed a friend to help me get back to you with all the rubble in the way. Dudette, you are more than lucky you were in the garage when when we got trapped. Any other room and you'd be dead. I'm sorry I couldn't get you out earlier, but...as you can probably tell from way I'm holding it and all the blood my right arm is pretty messed up. I couldn't carry you. I could barely pull you out of the car."

"I can't move..." she sighed. "What...what's wrong with your blood?"

"Huh?" Sonic asked. He looked his arm and noticing the bloody parts were covered in little silver speckles. "It's just junk from the collapsed building sticking to the blood, don't worry. We're gonna get you out of here and to the hospital."

"No!" she exclaimed. "I can't. I can't go to the hospital, they'll find me."

Sonic nodded. "Yeah, true, that makes sense. Don't worry, Eggman can probably help you. I'm pretty sure he's a doctor."

Nova paused, and chuckled to herself. "Hey Sonic."

"Yeah," asked Sonic, slightly confused.

"I think my foot's broken."

Knuckles picked her up carefully, and as they made their way back Sonic explained in careful detail everything that had happened, starting with Tails planting the tracker on him and ending with the drone strikes on the Minutemen's facility. Knuckles made his annoyance with Tails' initial actions known, but that was soon replaced with intense worry as he heard about the disappearance again.

At the end of it, Knuckles was sure of one thing: he was completely willing to help the Minutemen. Sonic was too, even more now that he'd formed an emotional investment in Nova from seeing her through such mortal danger and almost losing her. They barely knew each other, but he now considered her a friend. He'd have to be stone cold not to.

As they approached Eggman's plane, Nova realized something very important about it. "That's the Zero Point Space Plane! I didn't think the technology was ready!"

"You're looking at the first prototype," Eggman announced, proudly. "But we need a chaos emerald to power the cloak or we'll never make it into space. That's clearly impossible, but the Master Emerald is missing so we can't use that either. "

Sonic glanced at the chaos drive bracelet on Nova's wrist. "We have this bracelet thingy. It's a chaos energy emitter. Do you think there's any chance we could use that?"

"Not exactly," said Eggman. "Not unless it were somehow as powerful as an emerald. But it should provide enough output at least to make us harder to detect on radar."

"I know I'm injured," said Nova, "but we gotta take care of more important matters first. We need to get that space plane and the blueprints over to our secondary location and the first stages of Operation Globe can begin."

"What's that?" Sonic asked.

"It involves the acquisition of all of Gerald Robotnik's research and technology that remains on the Space Colony ARK. With this plane, reaching it is within our grasp. I really never thought I'd see the day." She paused. "Knuckles, can you put me down now?"

"Oh!" Knuckles responded. "Sorry about that." He let go. She flopped awkwardly to the ground and stumbled, momentarily regaining her footing. Nobody chuckled, but they might have under better circumstances.

"There's one problem," said Eggman. "We're not going to be able to travel to the ARK undetected. Flying low to the ground with the chaos drive will at least make it hard to spot us, but we'd need something at least as powerful as an emerald to truly cloak."

Nova seemed unfazed. "Don't worry about it, we'll figure out something."

"What are you planning to do with my grandfather's research?" Eggman wondered.  
"Simple; we'll use the technology developed for Project Shadow to biologically engineer soldiers. It's the only way we can amass enough manpower to actually fight G.U.N. directly." Sonic started laughing. "What?" Nova asked, irritated. "Why is that funny?"

"No, no, not that," Sonic assured her, still chuckling. "I'm just so friggin' glad I punched Rouge in the face now."


	6. Tails

**Chapter VI**

 **Tails**

Tails was fully expecting to die at any moment. His surroundings were too dark to see and he couldn't even begin to fathom where he was. He had been carrying the emerald away from Sonic and G.U.N. until, for a split second, a blinding light had flashed before dying into pitch black, as if the entire universe had tripped the circuit breaker. The glow of the Master Emerald, which rested beside him, did not shed any light on his surroundings. It for all the world looked like an empty void of nothingness.

But that was not important.

What was important is that the collar was going to be detonated.

Tails was absolutely about to explode and at this point, he couldn't give a solitary shit about his mysterious new surroundings even if he'd wanted to.

He hugged the Emerald, intending to shatter it with the blast, and waited.

He continued to wait.

He continued to wait and he continued to not explode.

Huh.

At this point, Tails was slightly frustrated. If he wasn't going to blow up, what exactly was he supposed to do with the Master Emerald? Obviously, he couldn't just hide it. The Master Emerald was extremely detectable unless it were housed in a facility specifically impermeable to chaos radiation, which Tails was fairly certain only people like Eggman or Commander Tower had at their disposal.

Suddenly, another flash. He found himself this time in a small, featureless room. The emerald was no longer next to him, but he was relieved to find himself in what appeared to be an actual physical reality. In the back of his mind was the thought that he had been killed and the afterlife was a dull waiting room.

"Uh, hello? Is anyone there?"

Based on the resounding silence he surmised the answer was "no", and recoiled in horror at the realization that he was going to spend an undetermined amount of time in a featureless room. He sighed loudly and flopped on the floor. Five or six eternities later - or at least it felt that way - he stood back up and began pacing.

"I wasn't taking the Emerald for G.U.N.," he tried. "I was trying to keep it from getting into their hands. This collar around my neck, it's not for decoration or because I'm into that sort of thing; it's what they call a Deviation Deterrent Choker. The operator detonates it if you don't stick exactly to the plan. I was deliberately trying to get them to kill me so it'd shatter the Master Emerald. It wasn't a permanent solution, but it would've bought everyone time."

"Your DDC was neutralized upon retrieval," came an immediate response from an undetermined source. "Electromagnetic pulse," it elaborated.

"Wait." Tails groped at the DDC, which was gone.

"Until we are able to ascertain your psychological state, loyalties, and intentions we have affixed to you to our own version of the device as a safety measure."

"Wait," said Tails, groping for the choker a second time, confirming again that there was nothing around his neck. Were they trying to mess with him? Was this the beginning of an extended gaslighting session?

"For your own mental wellbeing, it should be noted that you are currently surgically hardwired into a virtual environment for temporary detainment."

"Surgically hardwired?!" Tails was alarmed by this revelation, and understandably so. "You're telling me you're tampering with my brain and that's supposed to calm me down?!"

"The evaluator will be with you shortly."

"Shortly? What does shortly mean?" Tails asked frantically, dreading another extended bout of nothingness. There was, of course, no answer. He sat down on the floor and tried to comfort himself with reminders that he had no proof that any of this was true.

For a long time, there was silence before a painfully loud crackle of thunder jolted Tails out of his trance. He looked into the light, alarmed, as he was brought out of virtual reality and into actual reality. He coughed and sputtered, gasping for air. He had never felt so disoriented and nauseated in his entire life.

He was laying on some sort of table. The surrounding room was grey, but at least had defining features of a physical space; matte walls, corners and so forth. Tails, groping at the pain in his head, discovered a metallic helmet fixed to it. Trying to yank it off proved one of the sharpest pains he had ever felt, and he felt it inside his brain. He jerked violently, his ability to breathe temporarily revoked.

"Tails, is it?" asked a female figure, stepping through a dilating opening in the wall. Tails screamed at the top of his lungs and expelled the entire contents of his stomach. She didn't seem phased by this. "We are trying to keep G.U.N. from taking control of society. They pose a massive danger to the integrity of this planet, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that more aggressive means will be necessary to stop them. We feel you can help us."

Tails tried to turn his head but was restricted by the cables. "You're the good guys, right?"

"My name is Nova. I was the one in charge of the Master Emerald retrieval operation. We weren't intending to move in yet, but G.U.N. forced our hand."

"We need to get Sonic away from them," Tails blurted out, ignoring her.

"In due time."

"'In due time?' Spare me the obtuse dialogue, we need to save him!"

Nova ignored him in return. "The priority right now is taking control of the Mystic Ruins mine shaft and keeping G.U.N. away from the Fountain. The Fountain is the key to everything, and without control over it we have no hope of stopping them."

"Why?"  
"There's a potential to forge more chaos emeralds from the liquid chaos. That means unlimited power."

"Wait," said Tails, "hold the phone. You can forge chaos emeralds? Are you even allowed to do that?"

"Nobody knows how it was done, but based on their writings it is believed the echidna Ah Canul clan created the emeralds 4,000 years ago. Later falling into the hands of the Knuckles Clan, this culminated in the creation of the being you knew as Chaos, something we believe was not intentional."

"No, no, no. Chaos was a chao mutated by exposure to the Master Emerald."

"Funny, your friend Knuckles has been sitting by the thing for years and he hasn't gone all melty."

"Are you messing with me?"

"It was a chao, yes, but the catalyst was liquid chaos, not the Master Emerald. All information about the Ah Canul connected to liquid chaos never entered the public record. Everything you think you know about them and the surrounding history was altered by G.U.N.."

"G.U.N.?" Tails repeated, needlessly.

"They oversaw the initial excavation and study of the site, which was kept secret until all sensitive information had been removed. And do you know who was in charge of dealing with the liquid chaos?" Pause. No answer. "Gerald Robotnik."

"No way," said Tails.

"The Artificial Chaos drones, the mimicry of echidna architecture deep within the ARK's core, the emerald shrine at its center. Don't you understand? The ARK's experiments, Project Shadow, everything was predicated on unlocking the potential of liquid chaos."

"But GUN stopped the experiments. They killed everyone involved. Why are they going after the Fountain again?"

"The government forced them to stop. GUN being granted relative autonomy in recent years must have given them an opportunity to go back without oversight. Our running assumption is that they are trying to finish what Gerald Robotnik started."

Tails sat for several seconds. "How do we stop this?"

"We can't stop them. All we can hope to do is impede them. Your friend could be an asset to us, but we can't concern ourselves with him for now."

"Wait a minute!"

Nova glared. "Don't interrupt me."

"Geez, sorry."

"I hate being interrupted."

"I said I was sorry."

"It really pisses me off."

Tails sighed. "Go ahead."

"We're planning to use an EMP as an initial strike to knock out all electronics at the dig site. If Sonic happens to be there, his DDC's dead and he'll be able to escape without our help. Otherwise, we'll have to retrieve him at a later time."

"You can't just leave him there!"

"We're all expendable, Tails. This is war, and you can't win a war if you're pussing about too scared to put yourself or someone else in harm's way. Sonic isn't our problem." Her approach Tails was very deliberate. There was no time to try and convert him to the cause; she simply had to force him.

Tails glared. "I'll make it your problem unless you rescue him. Otherwise, I'm not helping you."

Nova smiled. "We don't need your help. Additional manpower is useful, but there's nothing special about you. If you choose to make yourself useless, I'm turning the AR back on. If you're really so concerned with Sonic, it's in your best interest not to be a dick about this."

Tails stared at her in helpless contempt. "...fine."

Nova nodded and exited the room. She walked fifteen feet down a hallway and turned into another room.

"Any news?" inquired Sonic, who was sitting inside.

"We have a secondary priority in hitting the Fountain dig site with an EMP and attempting to steal a sample of liquid chaos," she responded. "As for the Zero Point plane, that will be repaired within the week. You really did a number on it."

"Well, I did kinda think it was coming to kill us."

Nova smiled. "I appreciate the thought."

"Heh. No prob," said Sonic, giving her a thumbs up. "I'd do anything to protect my friends."

Nova gave a genuinely spirited face. "Speaking of...I promise you we'll find Tails."

Sonic sighed. "I really hope so."


	7. Alone

**Chapter VII**

 **Alone**

The band was back together. Or rather, most of them. For their own safety, as soon as the plane had been repaired Sonic had gathered Amy and Cream and brought them back to the secondary Minutemen base. They were the two most likely targets for G.U.N. to go after, although with Sonic missing or presumed dead it was hardly certain that they were in any danger of being held hostage. After all, he had not only delivered a bomb meant to explode in his presence but been inside a building that had been annihilated by missiles. It would frankly be a bit frustrating if G.U.N. _wasn't_ assuming they had got him. As far as they should be concerned, G.U.N. killed Sonic and Nova and destroyed the Minutemen's base with all their computers and weapons and water coolers in it. They had been incredibly careful about getting everyone to the secondary base over the course of the past several weeks, careful to do so in as circuitous a way as possible so as to avoid any potential tracking.

Amy was incredibly relieved to finally understand where Sonic had been, though the news had sent her on a rollercoaster of emotional reactions. Tails was obviously foremost on her mind now. She had no idea that meteor shower was the last time she'd see him, at least for now.

Cream reclined in her chair, as Cheese fiddled about with some twigs. Knuckles whittled a branch for no particular reason. They were sitting outside of the secondary Minutemen base, helpfully concealed within a thick brush. All things considered, they were having a pretty good day.

"I hope Tails is OK," she mused.

Amy nodded in solidarity. "We all do."

Sonic was pacing back and forth and had been doing so for quite some time. The next step was to get to the Space Colony Ark, that much was clear. The spaceplane, in a supreme example of subterfuge, would be able to cloak and keep their doings hidden away. Everything was basically going great, except for that one missing piece. Tails was a wild card now. Sonic wanted nothing more than to just be with him and tell him everything was OK, even if it wasn't.

"What the hell happened to him?" Sonic said aloud. "He just freaking disappeared. I don't get it!"

Amy and Cream stayed quiet. They knew it was a rhetorical question. Knuckles had been filled in on what had happened with the Master Emerald, so his interest in the subject was implicit.

"I dunno," said Knuckles."

"Yeah. I get that," Sonic shot back. "I'm just complaining." He kicked a rock. It ricocheted off the side of the building and plonked into the pond. Cream clapped.

"That was cool," said Sonic. "But I didn't mean to do that."

"Do it again!" Cream shouted in excitement.

"I don't know how. I didn't mean to do it in the first place."

"Oh," said Cream, "OK."

Sonic turned to see Nova approaching them from the building. She took a chair next to Amy.

"So, it looks like we're going to fly up there tomorrow," Nova announced.

"Really?" Sonic asked, surprised.

"Yeah. Get your stuff together, because we're moving."

Sonic glanced around. "I don't have any stuff."

"Good," said Nova. "That's less weight. Cream, you can stay behind and tend to our chao garden."

"Yay!" Cream jumped and clapped.

Sonic smiled but resumed his frustrated pacing. Why would they have a chao garden at a place like this? That just seems bizarre.

"Oh, and Sonic," Nova added, "I'm afraid the dig site hit is in the morning. You've been there, you know the layout and you're extremely quick. We can't do this without you."

Sonic shuddered at the thought of returning to that mineshaft. "I want protection. Last time I got attacked down there."

"Yeah, don't worry. We'll get you something specifically designed to deal with a phase-shifting creature. We've been working on it to take out any Artificial Chaos drones that may still be on the ARK."

"I don't want to kill the thing!" Sonic shot back.

"Then you can freeze it with this device. Phase-shifting chaotic organisms can survive being frozen."

"Yeah. Chaos survived being frozen. That's fine."

"You sure you're OK doing this?"

Sonic stopped pacing and looked her dead in the eyes. "I _need_ to do this. Like you said, nobody else can. If it's up to me I can do it, no question."

"Bring me," Knuckles interjected. "Sonic doesn't need to be risking himself doing it alone."

Nova nodded and left. Sonic, once again, resumed his pacing. He felt like bringing Knuckles was less helpful and more just another person he had to worry about. If it was just him, nobody else was in danger. He could deal with protecting himself. Right now he wasn't in the mood to worry about a second party with their own agency who might do something wrong and get hurt.

He shook his head. Was he really so paranoid he couldn't trust Knuckles of all people to keep himself safe? That seemed irrational. Then again, it's not like Sonic had been able to keep himself safe. Or Tails. Maybe he'd just been spoiled by the unyielding farce that was Dr. Eggman. Maybe things were always this dangerous and he'd been too careless to see it.

Well, _that_ was a disturbing thought to spend sleepless nights ruminating on.

"Cool beans, dude!" he finally facaded. Cue high five. "Haha," he chuckled, "I'm dead inside."

"What?" asked Knuckles.

"I'm dead inside. Y'know, uh, hungry. We should nab some grub and hash out this mission. But first I need to take care of something."

Not particularly clever, but it would do.

It had been a manic few weeks. Almost like a family road trip, only you're trying to hide the fact that you haven't been exploded. They were almost certain they couldn't have been tracked, but there was always that nagging paranoia. You never knew when you might turn around to see a trusted ally aiming a gun at your face. Sonic was always the voice of reason, telling people to stay calm and collect themselves. He kept the team spirit up. No matter how much the stress was eating at him, he maintained his demeanor for the sake of everyone. After all, if Sonic was breaking down who would be left to turn to? So long as he knew his little buddy Tails was alive, he could keep going. That was enough.

But one thing had been bothering Sonic. One major thing. He was sure that cloaking technology required chaos energy to function. He was doubly sure that the chaos emerald has been lost to the depths of space, and that the Master Emerald was gone with Tails to whatever perpendicular nether dimension he'd been thrown to. So how was this cloakable spaceplane supposed to work? He figured he needed to ask a person who would really know.

"Hey, Eggman!" Sonic shouted from afar.

Eggman noticed him and waved to indicate his attention. Sonic jogged over.

"Something's really been bothering me about this cloakable spaceplane thing."

"Is it that we can't power the cloak?" Eggman interjected.

"Yes!" Sonic almost shouted. "I've talked to Tails about this and it's impossible to cloak things without chaos energy! Nova keeps insisting they've found a way around it."

"According to everything I know," said Eggman, "and that's a lot, it shouldn't be possible to fully cloak this spaceplane without a chaos emerald."

"Something's not adding up here," Sonic espoused, pacing about. "Tails just disappears with the Master Emerald and suddenly here we are doing something that's supposed to require chaos energy."

"When it comes to these kinds of groups, Sonic, you can never be too careful."

Sonic put his hand to his forehead and sighed. "Why does everything have to be so complicated? At least I know where you and I stand. With Nova, she seems like a pretty cool gal, but I just don't know what to think."

"You're thinking she might have something to do with Tails' disappearance?"

"I mean I can't rule that off the table, but I really don't want to think that. Just keep this between you and me, OK? I don't want to show my hand just yet if it could put Tails in danger. Somehow."

"That's perfectly fair," said Eggman, and the two parted ways.

Sonic's mood didn't really shift even as time went by. That night, he and Amy were staring off at the sunset. The sky was lit a gorgeous orange and pink smoothie with touches of clouds. They sat atop the roof of the Minutemen base, where they could at least make out some of the setting sun through the treeline.

"I guess tomorrow is the big day, huh?" Sonic asked.

"Yeah," Amy said.

Sonic couldn't help but feel apprehensive about this. After all, he was starting to not trust those around him. Things were usually clear cut, but he couldn't hazard a guess as to what Nova's real intentions were. If it weren't for the threat from G.U.N. he would not let his friends stay here. Unfortunately, out in the open was a far more opaquely dangerous position.

"I'm just not sure about all this, I guess," he offered, dancing around any specifics.

"This is our next best move," Amy reminded him. "We can get ahead of them."

Sonic sat there in silence. Despite the fact that he had most of his friends with him, he'd never felt more alone; and the fact that Eggman was his lone confidant was all the more isolating. Something just wasn't right here, and he had to find out what it is. But, for now, it seemed best to keep quiet and go with the flow while he sussed out more information. Considering the precarious position they were all in, he didn't want to play that card until he truly needed to. G.U.N. was indeed a very serious problem, and stopping their advance was definitely a good thing to do regardless of any other factors.

Sonic turned to Amy. "Do you trust these guys? The Minutemen?"

"Of course. You brought me here and I trust you implicitly."

Sonic smiled. "Don't worry about. It's nothing. I'm just stressed, y'know?"

Amy considered putting her arm around him but shied away. Sonic responded to the non-gesture by violently coughing so hard he could swear he tasted blood.

"Are you OK?" she asked.

Sonic thought back on the liquid parasitic chao that had gone inside of him. Maybe he was just being paranoid, but suddenly coughing up a storm was _always_ a prelude to death in the movies. Then again he'd healed suspiciously quickly - _impossibly_ quickly - from his wounds. "Yeah, I'm fine," he answered, beginning to feel like a pathologically reassuring liar.

He couldn't help but think that at least things were cut and dry up to this point, motivation-wise. He knew what G.U.N. wanted him for. But by now Sonic had absolutely no idea what was going on, and it was a profoundly disturbing feeling; one that he couldn't even talk about with his teammates.

Amy was right there, and yet he was alone.

* * *

Tails sat, fixated on the Master Emerald. He was busy converting a chaos reactor's core chamber to fit the oversized gem. He didn't really have much of a choice in the matter, but he wasn't about to risk whatever fate might befall him if he refused.

As far as he knew, Sonic was still under lock and chain. Vain though the chances were, he couldn't stop vowing to himself that he would be the one to save him. Sonic, who in all likelihood thought Tails was dead, would stand in utter shock as he stood before him and annihilated the DDC with an electromagnetic pulse. And hell, time permitting he'd charge his blue friend and tackle him to the ground. Hopefully not hugging his ribs into multiple pieces, but every war has casualties.

He thought not of himself as an individual; Tails was merely the culmination of everything he could do to help out. He had mammoth sins to atone for, and his attempt to do so by sacrificing himself to achieve an arguably meager end was barely beginning to dawn on him. It was all he could have done and in the end, it was thanks to it that he had a chance no matter how small to do right by Sonic.

Not only that, but he had a plan. He'd specially requested tools that were logical for his task but could double as a means of breaking through a metal door - _the_ metal door keeping him in here. The only question was what he might find on the other side. If he was to pull this stunt he'd need to actually be breaking free and not just into an adjacent room.

This was his only real chance, though. While working on the Master Emerald his DDC had been removed. As a chaos radiation emitter, the Master Emerald would simply fry the thing like an EMP - worse, it could cause a surge in the device and trigger the explosive. There was a very good reason it was kept in this containment room.

All Tails knew was that he was hooking the thing up as a chaos energy source. Whatever it was that needed not only this level of power but this _kind_ of power, he couldn't help but feel concern that he was enabling something dangerous all over again.

He sighed loudly, crossed the room and began to blow torch the door. He'd deliberately overestimated to Nova how much time he'd need; he was already finished but holding off on activating the power hook-up until much later.

He didn't know what he would find on the other side; if he would be stopped in his tracks. It didn't matter, though. Tails wasn't going to let anything stop him. Anyone who tried was gonna get a blowtorch to the face.

On the other side of the door, Eggman and Nova stood silently. They were doing the final preparations of the ZP spaceplane, secured inside its own hangar.

"The Master Emerald is inside?" asked Eggman.

"By tomorrow it'll be all hooked up and ready to go. G.U.N. never know we were there."

"Sonic's been asking questions. That little rodent is too smart for his own good."

"That's fine. Just give some BS about using that chaos drive bracelet to power the cloak. If he turns on us there's nothing keeping him here, and we can't afford to give back Tails at this point."

Eggman shot her a glance. "You are going to return Tails, right?"

"Maybe when we're done," she mused. "But this is our only chance to really take out G.U.N. We need Tails' help or we can't repair the Eclipse Cannon in time. Either this goes down as planned, or they find us and we're all dead."

That was, unfortunately, about the size of it.


	8. Trust

**Chapter VIII**

 **Trust**

The Serpent God would be most pleased. Chief Pachacamac of the Knuckles Clan had finally acquired the legendary Chaos Emeralds after a final assault on the Ah Canul. Very few of them had even been alive for the raid, bodies lining the streets in advanced states of decay. Many of them were hideously deformed, others partially liquefied. Something had wiped them out; something had annihilated them. Perhaps, the Knuckles decided, a plague from the Serpent God to punish them for their blasphemous worship of false idols.

The Knuckles elected to erect their own Shrine to the Chaos Emeralds in their home city, a copy of the Ah Canul temple they had torn apart stone by stone. But what was to be the main feature of said Shrine would only be discovered upon breaking into the burial chamber of Chief Kan Boar. The inside was illuminated in a warming green glow by a massive emerald, placed there in hopes that it would one day resurrect Kan Boar so that he may lead his people once more.

Not that there was anyone left to lead.

The Master Emerald was given its own special spot in the center of what had become its namesake shrine. There it reigned over the Knuckles for decades, heralding good fortune and bountiful harvests. Those days were numbered, however, as when they tried to follow the Ah Canul's lead and weaponize chaos energy they were stopped by the liquid beast Qaholom - Guardian of the Chao - who wiped them out in a rampage. What remained of the wrecked city was a grotesque mirror of the Ah Canul massacre.

Much like them, the Knuckles were decimated by their own doing. Few survived, and over the millennia they dwindled further until only a single echidna renamed; Knuckles the Echidna, named for his extinct tribe, was the last of his kind.

He had little idea of the full story. Legends were certainly passed down, but no real hard factual history quite made it to Knuckles. He really didn't truly understand why he was meant to guard the Master Emerald, why it was his fate. He simply knew that it was, and that was good enough for him.

He felt lost without it. He felt naked. He had been robbed of his true purpose, which was why upon boarding the Zero Point plane with Sonic and Nova he felt an exhilarating rush.

"I sense it!" he shouted, seemingly apropos nothing.

Sonic squinted. "Knux, what have I told you about using nouns?"

"The Master Emerald! I can feel it!"

"You couldn't be," Nova quickly interjected. "The only chaos energy around here is the chaos drive we're using to cloak."

"That is true," Eggman confirmed from the pilot's seat.

"Don't tell me I'm wrong!" Knuckles shouted back. "I know the Master Emerald!"

"Yeah. But. Like." Sonic paused and squinted. "It's not, though."

Nova again chimed in. "If you sense the Master Emerald, is it coming from the plane's chaos reactor?"

"I don't know! I just feel it!"

"Probably the chaos drive," Sonic shrugged.

"Not to interrupt this quite thrilling bickering," said Eggman, "but shouldn't you two be suiting up?"

"Ah, hells yeah!" Sonic exclaimed. "Just like that stuff I got from G.U.N., only I'm not being held hostage." He slipped on the black gloves. "Black is so my color."

"How am I supposed to wear this?" asked Knuckles, trying to stretch the suit over his head.

"...you unzip it, dude."

"I knew that," Knuckles shot back, knowing full well how fruitless the claim was. "It's not like I wear clothes."

"Do you want me to help?" Sonic asked, only half-joking.

"No no no, I got it," Knuckles insisted as he attempted to free his glove from the zipper. Sonic, figuring the echidna had embarrassed himself enough for one day, walked over and gave him a hand.

"Dude, get some gloves with fingers."

"We're about to land," Eggman announced. "Gear up and get to the hill we talked about. We'll use the plane's infrared scanner to keep an eye on activity on the site and spot you an ideal time to sneak through."

"I'll stay here," Nova added. "I need to monitor the cloaking device, cuz we're screwed if they can detect us."

"Alrighty!" said Sonic, finishing zipping up Knuckles.

"What's this?" Knuckles wondered, holding up a headset.

"That's how you'll be staying in touch," Eggman explained. "Just hold the big button on the earpiece to start a communication. Hit it again to cancel."

Knuckles groaned. "I really hate dealing with technology. You guys all grew up with it, but I didn't."

"Chill, dude," said Sonic, patting him on the shoulder. "I got your back. I'm no Tails but I'm a whiz at pressing buttons."

"I still feel the Master Emerald," Knuckles complained.

"For the last time," Nova insisted, "no you don't."

Meanwhile, not twenty feet below them, the Master Emerald was casting Tails and the entire room in a bright green glow. He was finally positive of where he was. Or, at least he knew what he was inside of: a plane. Where that plane had just gone with him inside he couldn't say, but he was surer than ever that this was his chance to break out. He'd have little time to get his bearings, but he'd be out. A plane wouldn't have any mazes of hallways waiting for him on the other side of that door, allaying his primary fear of breaking out only to find another room he can't get out of. Ever more excited at the prospect of escape, he tapped his foot impatiently as the blowtorch made its way through the lock mechanism on the massive door.

"Come on. _Come on_ , you stupid thing," he grumbled. "I don't have all day!"

Nova had deliberately left Tails in the chaos chamber, figuring the best way to keep tabs on him was to have him stay with her as she oversaw the mission. What she hadn't counted on was Tails rigging up a chaos torch out his blowtorch via the power coupler to the Master Emerald. She knew he couldn't get out of there with the tools they'd provided, but she had no idea he had the capability to modify them into something that could.

Suddenly, shockingly sooner than he was expecting, the locking mechanism kerchunked and sparked and the door audibly shifted. Tails stood for a moment, wide-eyed, instantly overwhelmed by the immediately tangible sense of freedom. He hadn't even gotten outside and he already felt a rush. He shook his head and began working on picking the lock beneath the now-deceased metal plate concealing its innards. If it had been any more sophisticated a lock Tails would be screwed; but, thanks to the immensely powerful chaos radiation of the Master Emerald, they were forced to resort to a good old fashioned lock and key.

Tails' heart skipped a beat the moment his triumph over the lock became audible. He grabbed the chaos torch and disconnected it from the Master Emerald for use as a weapon. He had, by his estimate, thirty seconds of use before the stored chaos energy ran dry. If he needed to use the thing for any reason, he had to be extremely careful about his counting. He put the torch in his teeth, grabbed the door with both hands and pushed with all his might. Little by little, the door budged, only to greet Tails with a heart-stopped noise.

"CHAOS REACTOR BREACH!" screamed an electronic voice accompanied by an ear-shattering alarm.

"Oh SHIT!" was all Tails could say, dropping the chaos torch out of his mouth and redoubling his efforts to push the door. All he needed was just enough space to squeeze through. He was so close. He was so damn close. His breathing accelerated to match his heart rate. "Please! Please just OPEN!" he shouted. "COME ON!" Two inches. Two and a half. Three. He wasn't going to make it. This was his only chance and he blew it because he was such a weakling. _Sonic_ could have moved the door. _Sonic_ could have moved the door and been out of there in seconds. Tails screamed as he pushed to the point of pain, fighting for just a few more inches of space. Five. _Six_. Six! He could probably get through! Tails grabbed the chaos torch, shifted his position and struggled to squeeze through the door using his entire body against it. Then...then he made it.

Then he fell ten feet.

He really did expect the ground to be level with the door.

Tumbling from a height out of the well-lit plane into the near pitch-black darkness outside, Tails rolled across the ground and lost grip of his chaos torch - still attached via power cable to the Master Emerald. It swung back towards the plane and clanked roughly against the metal exterior, knocking its power switch back on and birthing a little green flame. Jumping to his feet as quickly as he could regain his bearings, he turned around and immediately lost them again at the sight of the plane. Or, rather, the lack thereof. All he could see was a sliver of the interior of the chamber, floating in the air. Son of a bitch, he thought; The Master Emerald was being used to power a cloaking device.

That's why he was abducted in the first place! It was never about him; it was about the Master Emerald. Once again, he'd been taken hostage just to get to someone or something else. He wasn't even important enough to be the central figure of his own kidnapping. AND THIS TIME IT WAS A GREEN ROCK.

Tails was almost too overcome with rage to focus on his own escape. It was all starting to make sense. He was ready to go punch Nova straight in the face and tie _her_ up; see how _she_ likes being a prisoner. Fortunately, his rage spiral was derailed by flickering orange light from behind him. Whipping around to face the potential danger, he spotted the chaos torch.

Problem was it was dangling from its cable in the middle of a brush fire it had just started; full-on engulfed with flames. Tails stepped back and forth in a panic, trying to decide whether or not he had time to try and get the chaos torch out of the fire. It was his only weapon, after all. Then again, once he disconnected the power source he'd only have enough charge to run it for maybe thirty seconds. But that thirty seconds could be the difference between life and death. That settled it. Taking the risk, he twirled his tails and flew up to a high point of its cable. He reeled the torch in and tried to grab it as he clicked the release mechanism on the power cable.

He screamed and dropped it on contact, having managed only to turn off the power, clutching the newly-burnt hand that his work gloves had totally failed to protect. Lowering himself to the ground he frantically scanned for a direction to run in and took off in the one with lights in the near distance.

Diving behind a bush after about fifty feet, Tails peeked back at the plane - or at least the cracked door that betrayed its invisibility. He exhaled sharply at the sight of Nova, armed with an automatic rifle, looking for him. She didn't have the gun aimed down or anything; she was clearly ready to shoot the first person she saw. Tails glared at her, struggling to suppress a litany of nasty words at incredible volume, and wondered if she really would shoot him if given the chance. For all she said he wasn't special, she seemed to need him.

What was he doing? Now wasn't the time to contemplate; now was the time to run the hell away. Tails, making sure he would remain concealed by the surrounding foliage, made a break for it straight toward the lights. If he could just get to that town, that place - that whatever - he could find somewhere to hide long term; somewhere he could get his crap together and work out an actual plan.

"Tails!" Nova shouted from somewhere behind him. "Stop right there or I _will_ shoot you!" Tails didn't even flinch. He twirled his tails and accelerated, powered by equal parts panic and spite, praying that she wouldn't open fire on him or at the very least that she would be a terrible shot. This wasn't fair; he'd already escaped! It couldn't end here! He was _so close_. That would just be embarrassing.

To his surprise, Nova didn't shoot. Despite making a big show of it all, she knew she couldn't fire without bringing attention to their presence at the dig site toward which Tails was unknowingly heading.

Stopping behind a hill and peeking over, Tails' stomach dropped at the sight of a place he recognized all too well. Even in the dark, it was obvious. The memories attached to the dig site were too visceral to forget. It was the last place he'd really been able to talk to Sonic. Why were they here? Was...was Sonic still here? Were they rescuing Sonic, like Nova hinted they might? He needed more than anything to know, but he couldn't just waltz in and find out.

Maybe they were here to steal liquid chaos. Nova had talked about using it to forge Chaos Emeralds, something that would enable for so many more undetectable cloaked vessels. And that-

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh _shit_.

Tails put his hands to his face at the realization that he could have just disconnected the Master Emerald and killed the cloak. He could have totally sabotaged Nova and forced her to flee without a chance to catch him! Why didn't he think of this before?! With no alarm to feed his anxiety, he could have been more careful and not dropped his only weapon. Now he had no way to proceed. Could he go to the dig site? Would they find him?

No. No no no. He couldn't escape Nova only to just get captured by G.U.N. all over again. That wouldn't even be unfair. That would be _stupid_. He'd sooner die than put Sonic in that position again. No, he couldn't just sneak in defenseless. He needed a weapon, any weapon; something to protect himself if things went south. He cringed at the thought of having lost the chaos torch in his haste. That was pathetic. Even if he could freely go back the thing would take hours to cool off.

Maybe...

Could he take Nova out? Could he get around behind her and jump her? She wouldn't be expecting it. She'd be expecting him to be running away. For all she knew he was a mile away by now. That's it then. He would travel back, bide his time and strike. He'd not only get her rifle but any assortment of weapons inside the plane. Hell, he could take the whole damn plane if he wanted.

Tails sighed and shook his head, mentally talking himself down. Don't get cocky; you'll end up with a bullet between the eyes.

He didn't even consciously realize it, but his plan was only as much a practical means of moving forward as it was an act of vengeance. He was a predator, stalking from the shadows, waiting for the time to pounce. He liked the sound of that. For once in his life, Miles "Tails" Prower was in control of the situation.

Or so he desperately needed to believe.

* * *

Sonic stood, alongside Knuckles, facing the multifarious ruins of the Ah Canul from behind a nearby hill. Despite the differences from the Knuckles Clan's ruins, the memories came strong. Another day, another time he lost someone he might have been able to save...

"You remember Tikal, right?" he asked Knuckles a little hesitantly. Knuckles found this a weird question.

"How could I not?" he asked back. Sonic paused and took a deep breath.

"I..." He faltered. "I...I never said anything while I was here with Tails. I was trying to be strong for the guy, y'know? He was so scared and felt like it was all his fault. I couldn't burden him with my own stupid emotions, but just being around these ruins...like, that throws me back to Tikal. Those flashbacks...when her spirit or whatever it was shared her story with us. I know it was thousands of years ago. I know I couldn't change anything, but...I watched this girl die. They trampled her and all those chao." His voice cracked as he struggled to maintain his composure. "They were _killed_. Right in front of me..." He paused, hesitant to finish the thought. "The poor things were killed and I just _stood there_...

"Every time I think about her, there's this voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me...why didn't you just grab her and run? I know it happened so long ago before I was ever born...but what if...y'know, _what if_ I could have done something? What if that was why I was there, to save her? She brought me back to make a difference and I just stood there. I didn't even try. It was killing me to think about all that stuff right at the same time I was wishing I could do the same for Tails; just grab him and run and get him away from anything that could hurt him. All I know is that he's alive, and...I don't even know that. Rouge told me, but she was just trying to get me killed anyway. Damn. I just...sorry. I shouldn't be going off like this. We have stuff to do."

Knuckles pat him on the back. "You need to stop thinking so much. You're killing yourself."

Sonic involuntarily shot a glare, but quickly came to his senses. He attempted a joke. "Yeah," he said through the phoniest smile ever made, "'course you'd tell me to stop thinking." He tried to force a laugh. "Heh...heh..." The facade stumbled and drowned. "Oh, what's the point? I can't stop my brain, man. It's always going a mile a minute. Running and doing stuff are the only things that help. Especially now when almost everything is going so frickin' wrong."

"If you have to worry, do it about our mission," Knuckles suggested. "We've gotta get liquid chaos from the mine. That's what we're here to do, and it'll help with whatever comes next."

Sonic sighed, and gave Knuckles an affectionate punch on the shoulder. "You're right, dude. I know I bust on ya all the time, but you got a good head on your shoulders and an even bigger heart."

Knuckles paused for a moment. "Are you saying I'm driven by emotion over thinking?!"

"Well, I didn't mean to," Sonic chuckled. "But I guess I did. Oospie." And with that, he pulled out the infrared binoculars and eyed the entrance. "If we just get down there, Eggman said we should be able to use the liquid chaos we collect to run a cloak on our suits. Wish we could have it going in; we could just strut right in like we own the place."

"If it helps any, I don't think you could have saved her." Despite the change in tone Knuckles didn't believe Sonic truly felt better about it. "My people were almost extinct for thousands of years. I'm so jealous that you got to see so much of them when they were all alive."

"Yeah, I guess you really deserved that more than I did." Sonic sighed, feeling worse off for Knuckles' further attempt at comfort. "Whatever, let's just..." Sonic groaned loudly and clutched his stomach. "Gah!"

"Hey, are you OK?!" Knuckles exclaimed.

"I'm OK!" Sonic nearly screamed, but quickly realized even he couldn't fake his way through this. "I'm—I'm not—I'M NOT OK! It hurts really bad! My stomach's on fire!" Sonic doubled over, an abnormal sight for such a tough hedgehog.

"That's it!" Knuckles decided. "Mission's over! We're getting you help!"

"I'm sorry..." Sonic moaned, choking a little bit. Knuckles hoisted Sonic's arm over his shoulder and began hurrying him back to the plane. "I've been trying so hard but it's been getting worse for days! There's something seriously wrong with me!"

Knuckles clicked a button on his headset. "Nova, we need to get back to the plane! Sonic's really sick and he's been getting worse for days!" Knuckles radioed.

"No!" Nova responded harshly. "You can't come back!"

"What the hell?!" Knuckles shouted. "Sonic needs help!"

There was no response.

"Find the door!" Sonic yelled, wishing to hurry things along. "We left it unlocked, it's just invisible. Grope along the side it was on."

"Right!" said Knuckles, brushing his hand around handle-height. He quickly found it, though it wasn't unlocked. Knuckles remedied the situation by punching it open and helped Sonic inside. They made their way to the cockpit as Knuckles loudly listed the things he was gonna do to Nova for locking them out. They arrived at the cockpit door. There was shouting on the other side; three voices.

"Oh man," Sonic realized. "Somebody found the plane! She was trying to keep us hidden!"

"Then she shoulda said so!" Knuckles complained, totaling the door with his fist.

"You don't understand what's going on!" Nova was screaming on the other side. "We're the good guys here!"

"You know what you did to me!" came the third voice.

It was Tails, holding Nova and Eggman at gunpoint with an energy weapon. All five of them promptly froze in complete silence. Sonic lost any sign of his pain, his expression frozen in a mixture of shock and joy. Tails had visible surgical scars on the top of his head, but he was alive. Nova quickly took advantage of the situation and grabbed Tails' pulse gun.

Then she shot him in the chest.

There fell another silence, infinitely more tense than the last. Sonic was paralyzed. He'd been waiting so long.

So.

Fucking.

Long.

He said nothing. He didn't reach for his freeze gun. Before he even realized what he was doing, he was already across the room strangling the life out of Nova.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!" he screamed in her face. "YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED TAILS!" He punctuated by slamming her head against the control panel. He couldn't believe what he was doing but he couldn't stop himself.

"Sonic!" Knuckles shouted, lunging at him.

"I didn't-kill-him-" Nova struggled to say. Knuckles grabbed Sonic and wrestled him off of her, holding him back as he fought to reinitiate.

"You're dead!" Sonic shouted. "You're fucking dead!"

"I didn't kill him!" she repeated between strained breaths. "It's a stun gun! It's — it's my stun gun; he grabbed it off me!" She took a few more breaths, grasping at a fresh but only mildly bloody wound where her forehead had hit the console. "I mean — God! What the hell?!"

Sonic was frozen yet again, a rush of so many different emotions washing over him. He averted his "I'm going to kill you" look from Nova and gently crouched down over Tails' unconscious body, patting him on the head.

"What...happened?" he asked, the disparity in tone from moments ago being almost palpable.

"I..." Nova paused. She had no good answer for this scenario; she was tied up in so many levels of deception even one more could send it all tumbling down. "I don't know," she offered. "He just showed up with a gun, screaming at us. Something about saving you from G.U.N. I'm as confused as you are." She shot a retaliatory glare to match Sonic's earlier look. "And I would appreciate it if you didn't try to kill me for defending myself."

"Well what did you _fucking expect_?!" Sonic fired back. "You lock us out, you don't tell us what's happening and then here's the friend I've been desperate to find and you shoot him right in front of me! EXCUSE ME FOR GETTING PISSED OFF! I'M IN HORRIBLE PAIN AND YOU'RE FUCKING WITH MY HEAD!" He grabbed Tails off the floor and hugged him tightly. "I'm talking to him," he said, turning his head to Nova. "When he wakes up, I'm talking to him first. No bullshit. He's telling me his side of the story and you're not going near him until I'm satisfied. I'm done playing your games."

"Sonic," Nova broke in, "we need that liquid chaos."

"Then get it yourself. Why should I risk my life for somebody who's gonna turn around and stab me in the back?" He barely paused. "Oh, and I want that chaos drive bracelet. That's _mine_. I _let you_ use it and I want it back."

"Sonic..." She paused. "Are you really gonna throw the whole world under the bus for your own benefit?"

"Oh, fuck you!" Sonic snarled. "The world can take care of itself for once! I have to protect the people I love and that's what I'm gonna do. We're all going somewhere safe, and if I hear a word..." He paused for another death glare. "...a word out of Tails about you lying or whatever shit you might have done, I'm never coming back. I owe you nothing."

Eggman continued to sit in silence, confident he could still get through this uncompromised.

Nova sighed loudly at the clear loss of two critical assets. "Knuckles, what about you?" she tried. "That liquid chaos belongs to your people."

"Sorry, Nova," said Knuckles, shaking his head. "I don't really know what all's going on here, but I'm with them."

Sonic gently picked up Tails. "You're gonna fly us back to the base right now. Screw with me one more time and so help me God I _will fucking kill you_."

Nova didn't try to argue. "Understood. You'll be back, trust me."

"I don't trust you," Sonic fired back before carrying Tails away to another compartment. "And I'm keeping the suit! Your payment for my service." As he walked past Eggman, he added, "Don't think you're in the clear either!"

"This is all new to me too!" Eggman defended.

"Yeah, yeah," came Sonic's last words as he left the cockpit.

"Hey," Knuckles suddenly realized, giving Nova a suspicious look. "Are you sure I'm not sensing the Master Emerald? Because I'm gonna need you to prove that to me when we get back."

Nova sighed. "Oh. OK." By this point, she was pretty certain that she'd lost them.

And there was no Plan B.


	9. Control

**Chapter IX**

 **Control**

Sonic found himself slumped over the floor, feeling borderline intoxicated and gurgling a mass of bubbles into an ever-growing pile. His mouth tasted like linoleum and everything smelled upside down. He struggled to get a bearing on his immediate surroundings, which frustratingly refused to stop doing their best Merry-Go-Round impression. Then he coughed up a ball of phlegm, grimaced at its worrying size, and shifted himself to look in the other direction.

Tails.

Oh right.

He'd been waiting for the fox to awaken and – apparently – fallen unconscious himself. So much for nothing being wrong with him. Had the G.U.N. medic lied to him? Or was this new? There was really no way to tell at this point.

He reached over and pet Tails, trying to express what many words he had to say to him in what meager gestures were currently available. He sighed loudly; he was petting Tails way too much. This would be kinda creepy if he hadn't thought the guy had been killed _twice_. Sonic shook his head. It was fine. Whatever; nobody's watching.

OK, _that_ definitely sounded creepy. Sonic whipped his hand away from Tails and used it to massage his own aching brow. He felt really terrible, and it was only getting worse. Up to this point he'd thought he could fight through the pain, but after last night? He literally had to be carried by Knuckles, just about blinded from the searing agony.

Ugh.

When was Tails gonna wake up? This was getting concerning. He'd been out for...however long Sonic had been plus the time from before then to last night. Whatever that added up to. The seemingly-fresh scars on his head were a worrying detail Sonic was struggling not to think about. There were a million questions that demanded a prompt answer. Sonic couldn't help but already feel pangs of guilt for his abandonment of Nova. At the time he'd been too furious to think straight. Now he was just festering over the idea that in his rage he'd compromised the war against G.U.N. – the kind of thing he'd never thought himself capable of.

His own words, "The world can take care of itself for once!" haunted him. That wasn't him; it was profoundly _un_ him. He didn't believe those words, and he didn't like that he could ever think them. He was horrified to have even an enemy hear them coming out of his mouth, let alone Knuckles. He flinched involuntarily at the idea of Tails somehow having heard him, despite his unconsciousness.

For the first time ever, Sonic felt he wasn't coming out in one piece. He'd been pushed further than he ever thought possible only to be straight-up shoved off a cliff. No matter how things turned out in the end, he couldn't be sure his sanity would remain unblemished. He hadn't comfortably slept but a night or two since this whole ordeal started, and even those nights were subject to viscerally disturbing nightmares. Every night he'd dream about losing Tails or failing to save someone only to helplessly watch them die before him; always a complete loss of control.

Could he really blame himself for losing it over Tails' apparent death before his eyes? That wasn't just a nightmare scenario; it was his _literal_ nightmare coming true. Again. _AGAIN._ How was he supposed to bounce back from this? He couldn't bear to let Tails out of his sight, but he also felt terrified to put the guy back on the field where anything could happen to him. Sonic scoffed. It was honestly kind of hilarious. He'd been a prisoner for so long, and his first certain freedom found him a prisoner to his own mind.

How pathetic.

Not that such thoughts were helpful, but they had their ways of inching in apropos nothing and declaring amnesty for several hours. He wondered where Knuckles was. He'd left in such a hurry he hadn't even spoken to the guy since they'd been on the plane. The moment he'd disembarked he'd bailed for home, carrying the unconscious Tails with him.

Maybe it wasn't such a big deal. Knuckles could find them if he wanted to. The important thing was Tails was safe, and Sonic was never going to let the fox out of his sight again. He couldn't stress this enough to himself: nothing was going to hurt Tails on his watch. The poor boy had suffered so much for being his friend, and enough was enough. Sonic would die before anyone laid a finger on him ever again.

Only right then, Tails stirred. Sonic responded by unleashing a tidal wave of joy to drown every negative thought permeating his conscience.

"Buddy! Pal!" Sonic exclaimed, alongside six or seven other synonyms.

Tails squinted his eyes. "...Sonic?" came a very unsure voice.

"Hey! Hi! How are you? Well, I mean, probably not great, but you're here!"

Tails immediately freaked out. "Where are we?! Is she here?!"

"Tails, buddy, nobody's around. We're safe."

"No no no, you don't understand, that fox girl is a _big_ problem! You don't know what she did to me!"

"Calm down, just explain it to me." Sonic found himself for some reason not choking on his own rage at the revelation that Nova was definitely dirty.

"The Master Emerald! She took the Master Emerald! I was trying to..." Tails trailed off, realizing he was about to admit to Sonic that he tried to sacrifice himself. "She abducted me with the Master Emerald. I think it was an accident but when she realized who I was they forced me to integrate it into a plane or something to power a cloaking device."

Sonic suppressed the anger-contorted face he felt fighting to form, now equally mad at himself for bailing on Knuckles. "Oh, you be gotta be fu..." He quickly course-corrected to "...kidding me," not wanting to swear so obscenely in front of Tails. It'd been shouldering in on his vocabulary ever since that unforgettable night at the Shrine of the Master Emerald where he was sure he'd lost Tails; the night he couldn't stop reliving over and over in his dreams, somehow ever more traumatizing with each iteration.

"She hooked me up to this computer virtual reality prison thing." Tails furiously gestured at this scalp. "There were wires in my _head_! I have no idea why they didn't just use a real jail. Do I have scars?"

Sonic sighed. "Yeah. I was afraid to ask..."

"Where are we?" Tails wondered, squinting his eyes at the dark room. They hadn't quite come into focus yet.

"Your house. I turned down the lights cuz you were asleep."

Tails glanced at his wrist. "What's that?!" he exclaimed in another explosion of anxiety.

"It's just a chaos drive bracelet!" Sonic assured him. "I put it on you to help you wake up."

Tails quickly noticed the ball of slime on the floor. "...and that?"

"I have a cold," Sonic lied.

"Gross," said Tails.

"Yep," Sonic agreed. "Didn't want to leave your side though."

"That's sweet, but I'd really prefer you not be hacking up loogies next to me while I'm sleeping."

Sonic snorted in amusement.

"Eew! Don't cough up another one!" Tails objected with a broad smile on his face.

Sonic chuckled out loud. "Oh man, you have no idea. You have no fu–" The briefest of pauses. "...no idea how long I've been waiting to kid around with you again."

Tails smiled. "Are you accidentally dropping f-bombs but catching yourself?"

"You don't know what I've been through."

"To be fair, I've been swearing a lot too recently."

"You better not be. At least one of us needs to be able to go out in public."

"I hate to...well, cut this off...but I think it's a little important how you found that plane."

Sonic paused. "I was manipulated into working for Nova. Me and Knuckles were on a mission to collect liquid chaos before we heard really suspicious transmissions from her." He excised his sickness from the equation with surgical accuracy. "When we came back she'd locked us out of the plane so we had to break in. And–and Knuckles said earlier he sensed the Master Emerald on the plane but they kept telling us it was my chaos drive bracelet powering the cloak."

Tails scoffed. "Pfff, yeah, like that makes sense."

"I know! But I didn't have any other choice. Nova promised she would help me find you. I had no other leads. I didn't know what else to do..."

"Oh...dude," said Tails, piecing things together. "I was right there. If you were with her then I was always right under your nose."

Sonic tried to dismiss the rage this information was bringing out. "I didn't trust her...but I never thought she'd be this two-faced. She better not have ever hurt you."

Tails mulled this over. "No," he lied.

Sonic became visibly distressed. "...why did you have to think about it?"

"I mean she locked me in a room for so long I lost any sense of time. That hurt but she didn't, like, hit me."

Sonic stood up. "Be right back."

"What? Where?" Tails wondered, uneasy with the idea of being left alone.

"Obviously, I'm gonna go ice this bitch," Sonic responded, only half-joking.

"You're thinking about this the wrong way!" Tails insisted, brightening up. "We aren't prisoners anymore and we know what's really going on! All we have to do is claim some sort of amnesia on my part – I dunno, blame the stun gun – and then you go back to working with her."

"Why?" Sonic asked sharply, not remotely into it.

"Because now _we_ have the power. We can use her and those terrorist people to our advantage. "

"Hey, you know..." Sonic began to like this idea. "She's not gonna try to cross us after what just happened. I basically tried to kill her after she shot you."

Tails paused. "Uh..."

"Hey, I thought she just killed you in front of me! After I'd fought so long and hard to find you! Honestly, I just beat her up a bit." He half-mimed a punch. "I don't think I would've, like, actually...killed her." Tails continued to sit in silence, not sure how to take this. "Don't tell me she didn't have it coming!" Sonic objected.

"She did," Tails conceded. "But that just doesn't sound like you."

"Really? That I would do _anything_ for you doesn't sound like me?" Sonic snapped, getting kind of indignant. "Sorry for caring I guess!"

"Back off," Tails grumbled, feeling like he'd had the subject changed on him. "You know what I mean."

Sonic facepalmed. "I'm sorry. I'm under so much stress I feel like I'm losing my grip."

Tails gave a very serious look. "Tell me the truth. You're sick, aren't you? And I don't mean a cold. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Sonic tried to come up with some comforting answer that down-played everything. "It's not just sick. I heal...super quickly. Sometimes it hurts like I'm sick but real injuries just...go away."

"You need to be tested again. You were either deceived about the findings of your first test, or there were no discernible symptoms that soon after exposure. You've _clearly_ been affected and something as unnatural as rapid healing is way more concerning than it might sound on the surface."

This confused Sonic. "Whaddaya mean? It's a frickin' superpower."

"It's biologically _impossible_ is what it is." Tails was growing frustrated with Sonic's lack of concern for himself. "You're not even slightly worried that your body has been somehow corrupted by an unnatural substance?"

"I guess I haven't had the time to worry about myself," said Sonic, simply.

Tails sighed loudly. "I can't believe I have to say this, but maybe you need to stop caring so much about other people."

Sonic could only think of snarky retaliation, so chose to say, "Eh."

"I take it by your non-response that you've taken my words to heart," said Tails, mirroring the level of snark in Sonic's head.

"Whatever, just test me. If that's what you want, I'll do it."

"This isn't about what _I_ want," Tails almost interrupted. "This is about not letting you die because you're too busy worrying about me to take care of yourself."

Sonic formulated several objections but decided not to voice any of them. "OK," was his response of pure acknowledgment with no value judgment.

"Come on," Tails told him, standing up without even a wobble.

Sonic mirrored the action, sans lack of wobble.

"Be careful," said Tails, holding his hand out instinctively as Sonic stumbled.

"I'm good, I'm good," Sonic auto-piloted, not accepting the help.

"Nobody expects you to be invincible, Sonic. You can't keep carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders."

Sonic didn't answer. Maybe Tails would shut up about his sickness if he got tested. After all, there were more important things to worry about.


End file.
